£xhvavy  of  tire  t:heolo0ical  ^tmimxy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of  the 
Rev.  John  B,  Wiedinger 
BV  4320  .J4 
Jefferson,  Charles  Edward, 

1860-1937. 
Quiet  talks  with  earnest 
people  in  my  study 


QUIET  TALKS 

WITH  EARNEST  PEOPLE 

IN  MY  STUDY. 


PR^ 


QUIET  TAL^^/CAL  ii^ 
WITH  EARNEST  PEOPLE 
IN  MY  STUDY 


BY 


CHARLES  EDWARD  7EFFERS0N 

Pastor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Church, 
in  New  York 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  &  CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1898, 
By  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Company. 


TO  THE 

ilasmen  of  (!L\}xi^itntim, 

THIS   VOLUME    IS    AFFECTIONATELY    DEDICATED 

BY   A   MINISTER 

WHO  ESTEEMS   AND   REVERES   THEM. 


HOW  IT  CAME   ABOUT 


Now  that  the  talker  has  finished,  let 
him  tell  you  how  he  happened  to  begin. 
For  more  than  ten  years  he  was  a  layman. 
He  has  never  recovered  from  it.  Through 
all  that  period  it  never  occurred  to  him 
that  he  should  ever  be  a  minister ;  and  his 
habit  of  looking  at  things  from  a  layman's 
standpoint  became  so  deeply  ingrained, 
that  even  to  this  day  he  often  forgets  he 
is  a  preacher  and  finds  himself  still  think- 
ing and  feeling  like  a  layman.  He  is 
more  at  home  in  a  company  of  laymen 
than  in  a  company  of  clergymen.  Dur- 
ing the  years  in  which  he  sat  in  the  pew 
he,  like  all  laymen,  supposed  he  under- 
stood ministers,  and  was  capable  of  judg- 
ing their  work ;  and,  like  many  laymen, 
he  was  sometimes  harsh  in  his  judgments, 
vii 


viii  How  It  Carne  About, 

and  unsparing  in  his  criticisms.  On  enter- 
ing the  ministry  he  began  to  see  things 
from  another  viewpoint.  Mysteries  once 
incomprehensible  opened  up  in  ways  quite 
surprising.  As  a  layman  he  had  often 
wondered  why  so  many  preachers  preached 
so  poorly.  As  a  preacher  he  began  to 
marvel  that  preachers  preach  as  well  as 
they  do.  While  an  onlooker  from  the 
pew,  the  life  of  a  minister  seemed  luxuri- 
ous and  free  from  drudgery ;  but  in  the 
pulpit  it  was  borne  in  upon  him  that  it 
is  one  thing  to  be  a  preacher  of  the  Word, 
and  quite  another  thing  to  be  a  hearer 
only. 

Throughout  his  ministry  he  has  listened 
with  amused  and  profitable  interest  to  the 
comments  upon  clergymen  which  laymen 
are  in  the  habit  of  making,  and  has  heard 
again  and  again  many  of  the  opinions  and 
estimates  Which  he  had  formerly  held  and 
expressed.  One  touch  of  nature  makes 
all  laymen  kin.  The  misconceptions  of 
a  minister's  work,  and  the  misinterpreta- 


How  It  Came  About.  ix 

tions  of  his  conduct  and  speech,  are  often 
so  ludicrous  that  it  would  seem  incredi- 
ble that  intelligent  people  should  be  guilty 
of  them  were  they  not  abiding  and  incon- 
trovertible facts  of  current  church  history. 

As  the  years  have  gone  on  he  has  found 
the  conviction  growing  in  him  that  one 
of  the  root  causes  of  ecclesiastical  disturb- 
ances is  the  chasm  existing  between  the 
pulpit  and  the  pew.  A  widening  knowl- 
edge of  church  life,  and  the  critical  study 
of  church  quarrels,  have  forced  him  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  not  total  depravity 
so  much  as  partial  ignorance  which  wrecks 
so  many  pastorates  and  leaves  so  many 
churches  stranded.  As  a  rule,  unpleas- 
antnesses in  the  Christian  Church  have 
sprung  from  very  trifling  matters,  and  in 
many  cases  there  would  have  been  no 
trouble  had  pastor  and  people  known  each 
other  better. 

Being  convinced  from  experience  and 
observation  that  peace  and  power  in  the 
churches  can   be  deepened  and  extended 


X  How  It  Came  About. 

by  bringing  pastors  and  peoples  closer 
together,  he  resolved  to  throw  open  the 
doors  of  his  study  and  invite  the  whole 
Christian  world  to  come  in.  For  just  such 
confidential  talks  as  it  was  in  his  heart 
to  give,  no  place  seemed  so  appropriate 
as  his  study.  The  pulpit  was  out  of  the 
question.  Many  themes  and  many  peo- 
ple cannot  be  taken  into  the  pulpit,  but 
the  minister's  study  is  roomy  and  hospi- 
table. In  his  library  all  ecclesiastical  divi- 
sions and  doctrinal  differences  sink  into 
the  background.  Look  at  those  shelves 
of  books !  Calvinist  and  Arminian,  Jes- 
uit and  Puritan,  Lutheran  and  Episcopa- 
lian, Baptist  and  Unitarian,  Methodist  and 
Presbyterian,  heretical  saints  and  orthodox 
martyrs,  —  all  stand  quietly  together.  A 
live  preacher  lives  on  them  all.  His  peo- 
ple get  them  all  in  his  sermons.  There 
are  at  least  two  places  on  earth  where 
denominational  titles  are  lost  sight  of,  and 
where  ecclesiastical  differences  do  not  es- 
trange, —  a  hymn-book  and  a  clergyman's 


How  It  Came  About,  xi 

library.  There  is  much  talk  nowadays 
about  the  desirability  of  Christian  unity 
It  is  comforting  to  believe  that  the  Church 
is  already  one.  Most  of  the  differences 
which  inflame  and  alarm  do  not  go  deeper 
than  the  skin.  Christians  are  Christians, 
no  matter  what  their  denominational  tag. 
Have  you  ever  noticed  that  whenever 
Christians  talk  on  vital  themes  they  inva- 
riably slip  into  the  same  vocabulary  and 
mood }  The  branches  of  Christendom  dif- 
fer in  polity  and  definition,  but  they  are 
all  alike  in  their  aims  and  needs.  This 
is  why  the  study-door  was  opened  so  wide. 
But  the  door  was  not  open  for  the  ad- 
mission of  ministers.  In  all  his  talks  the 
author  has  spoken  only  to  laymen.  This 
book  is  for  them.  Its  ambition  is  to  help 
them.  The  talks  must  be  judged  by  their 
aim.  If  the  frailties  and  shortcomings  of 
clergymen  are  touched  but  lightly,  or  studi- 
ously ignored,  it  is  not  because  the  author 
is  ignorant  of  them,  or  because  he  thinks 
it  sacrilegious   to  lay  them  bare,  but  be- 


xii  How  It  Came  About 

cause  ministerial  delinquencies  do  not  lie 
within  the  scope  of  his  purpose.  When 
he  writes  on  the  sins  of  clergymen  it  will 
require  a  larger  book  than  this  to  hold 
what  he  has  to  say.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  seems  to  bear  down  hard  on  the 
ignorance  and  perversity  of  laymen,  it  is 
not  because  he  is  blind  to  their  excel- 
lences, or  fails  to  measure  the  magnitude 
of  their  service,  but  because  the  aim  of  the 
talks  is  to  call  attention  to  those  things 
in  which  laymen  are  most  apt  to  go  astray. 
The  best  people  in  the  world,  so  the 
author  thinks,  are  laymen.  The  tallest 
and  sweetest  saints  whom  it  has  been  his 
privilege  to  know  have  been,  not  in  the 
pulpit,  but  in  the  pew.  There  is  probably 
no  subject  on  which  a  true  minister  of 
Christ  so  loves  to  dwell  in  his  thought  as 
the  sacrifices  which  laymen  are  making 
continually  to  advance  God's  kingdom. 
If  the  author  had  wished  to  tell  what  he 
thinks  of  the  heroism  and  nobility  and 
wisdom  of  the  members  of  the  churches, 


Hozv  It  Came  About.  xiii 

his  talks  would  have  filled  a  dozen  vol- 
umes instead  of  one.  If  his  estimate  of 
laymen  is  unwarrantably  exalted,  the  two 
churches  which  it  has  been  his  privilege 
to  serve  must  be  held  responsible.  Both 
of  these  churches  have  given  him,  in  gen- 
erous measure,  all  the  things  for  which  he 
pleads  in  the  following  pages.  If  the  talks 
seem  frank  to  the  verge  of  bluntness,  and 
if  subjects  often  ostracized  are  discussed 
in  language  which  is  not  minced,  it  is 
because  the  one  who  does  the  talking  has 
been  long  convinced  that  laymen  and  cler- 
gymen have  been  and  are  too  far  apart; 
and  that  when  pastor  and  people  become 
willing  to  sit  down  together  and  talk  about 
themselves,  their  wishes  and  purposes, 
with  straightforward  simplicity  and  unre- 
strained candor,  the  Church  of  God  will 
enter  upon  an  era  of  increased  usefulness 
and  power. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

L    The  Unknown  Man i 

II.     The  Maligned  Man 9 

III.  The  Misunderstood  Man i6 

IV.  The  Importance  of  Knowing  Him      .    24 
V.    The  Sermon 32 

VI.    What  is  the  Matter? 39 

VII.     Who  is  to  Blame? 46 

VIII.    Why  Time  is  Needed 54 

IX.    Vacation,  and  Why 61 

X.    Objections  to  Vacations 68 

XI.     Money 75 

XII.     Ministerial  Liberty 83 

XIII.  Liberty  Defined 90 

XIV.  Sympathy 97 

XV.     Co-operation 104 

XVI.    Considerateness iii 

XVII.    Thoughtlessness 118 

XV 


xvi  Contents. 

XVIII.  Ways  of  Killing  a  Sermon 

XIX.  Inspiring  the  Minister  .     , 

XX.  Appreciating  the  Minister 

XXI.  Criticising  the  Minister 

XXII.  Securing  a  Minister  .     . 

XXIII.  Dismissing  a  Minister     . 

XXIV.  The  Minister's  Wife  .     . 
XXV.  The  Mission  of  Laymen  . 


PAGE 
132 

146 

160 
167 


QUIET  TALKS  WITH  EARNEST 
PEOPLE  IN  MY  STUDY. 


The  Unknown  Man. 

Certainly,  come  in!  I  am  delighted 
to  see  you.     Be  seated,  please. 

And  this  is  your  first  visit  to  a  minis- 
ter's study  }  I  am  surprised  !  The  world 
as  seen  from  a  clergyman's  study  window- 
is  worth  looking  at,  I  assure  you.  You 
must  come  often. 

You  will  pardon  me,  I  hope,  if  I  grow 
communicative,  and  even  confidential. 
Your  coming  has  so  touched  me  that  out 
of  the  abundance  of  my  heart  my  mouth 
is  sure  to  say  things  which  I  am  not  in 
the  habit  of  saying  in  the  pulpit. 

You  laymen,  excuse  me,  do  not  call 
on  the  minister  often  enough.  You  have 
I 


2       Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

magnified  the  value  of  pastoral  calling 
beyond  reason.  I  wish  that  for  the  next 
few  generations  there  might  be  a  new 
emphasis  on  the  "layman's"  call.  I  have 
heard  many  church-members  complain  be- 
cause the  pastor  had  not  called  on  them. 
I  have  never  heard  many  confess  that 
they  had  neglected  the  pastor.  I  shall 
consider  this  late  call  on  me  as  fruit 
meet  for  repentance. 

No  one  can  look  out  upon  the  uni- 
versal church  without  saying,  "  Something 
is  wrong."  Of  course  that  is  nothing 
new.  There  has  always  been  something 
wrong,  and  probably  there  always  will  be. 
But  it  is  the  business  of  Christians  to 
keep  prying  into  the  roots  of  wrong 
things  that  they  may  devise  methods  of 
setting  the  wrong  things  right.  Let  us 
examine  a  few  of  the  roots. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  one  on 
even  a  hurried  survey  of  the  church  is 
the  widespread  discontent.  There  are 
altogether  too  many  dissatisfied  parishes, 


The  Unknown  Man.  3 

and  I  am  afraid  there  are  just  as 
many  restless  and  hungry-hearted  pastors. 
Church  quarrels  get  into  the  papers  with 
alarming  frequency,  and  pastorates  are 
distressingly  short.  Even  where  there  is 
no  noticeable  friction,  there  is  an  appall- 
ing meagreness  of  energy  and  power. 
There  is  an  immense  difference  between 
being  well  and  not  being  ill.  One  may 
not  know  what  health  is,  and  yet  never 
be  sick.  Many  churches,  not  sick  enough 
to  quarrel  with  the  minister,  are,  never- 
theless, debilitated  below  the  point  at 
which  effective  work  becomes  possible. 
The  wrangling,  obstreperous  churches  are 
not  so  saddening,  I  think,  as  the  shrivelled 
and  impotent  ones,  which  have  only  vi- 
tality sufficient  to  save  themselves  from 
extinction,  and  not  vigor  enough  to  show 
the  world  what  robust  and  conquering 
Christianity  is.  One  of  the  roots  of  all 
our  church  troubles,  I  take  it,  is  the  fact 
that  clergymen  and  laymen  do  not  come 
close  enough  together.     Were  I  asked  to 


4      Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

give  a  recipe  for  lengthening  pastorates 
and  increasing  the  vitaUty  of  the  churches, 
I  should  say,  "  Shorten  the  distance 
between  the  pulpit  and  the  pew."  Dis 
tance  breeds  misunderstandings.  When 
pastor  and  people  do  not  understand  each 
other,  the  nerve  of  power  and  peace  is 
severed. 

I  cannot  help  feeling  that  Protestants 
have  an  inclination  nowadays  to  hold 
themselves  aloof  from  their  leaders.  The 
eagerness  with  which  the  saints  seize  the 
back  seats  at  prayer-meeting  is  signifi- 
cant because  illustrative.  The  chasm  of 
vacant  pews  to  be  seen  in  most  churches 
between  pastor  and  people  is  the  visible 
sign  of  a  spiritual  gulf  which  ought  to  be 
bridged.  The  evils  of  mediaeval  priest- 
craft have  electrified  the  laity  into  a  state 
of  chronic  repulsion  ;  and  the  average 
Protestant  seems  to  be  afraid  of  being 
caught  in  the  act  of  exhibiting  too  much 
reverence  for  a  clergyman's  office,  or 
paying    too    much    attention    to    what    a 


The  Unhioivn  Man.  5 

clergyman  says.  The  right  to  read  and 
think  for  one's  self  is  popularly  construed 
to  mean  'that  everybody  is  as  good  a  the- 
ologian as  the  minister.  "  The  preacher 
is  no  longer  an  oracle !  He  has  been 
hurled  from  his  pedestal !  He  is  a  falli- 
ble mortal,  no  wise;"  or  better  than  the 
people  to  whom  he  preaches  !  He  labors 
under  serious  limitations,  and  has  inbred 
and  ineradicable  biases,  and  therefore 
what  he  says  must  be  taken  with  a  grain 
of  salt."  The  changes  have  been  rung 
upon  this  strain  until  a  multitude  of  pro- 
fessing Christians  act  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  a  preacher  is  to  be  endured 
but  not  heeded,  criticised  but  not  as- 
sisted, pitied  and  paid,  but  not  honored 
and  loved. 

But  nothing  is  gained  by  toppling  a 
man  from  his  pedestal  unless  this  brings 
him  closer  to  us.  The  important  thing 
m  this  world  is  not  to  hurl  men  from 
their  pedestals,  but  to  understand  them. 
And   notwithstanding   all   we  have   heard 


6       Qidct  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

about  the  dissipation  of  the  atmosphere 
of  mystery  in  which  the  ''  man  of  God " 
was  once  enshrouded,  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  minister  of  to-day  is  but  little 
better  known  than  he  was  centuries  ago. 
Once  he  was  lost  in  the  seclusion  of  the 
cloister,  now  he  is  lost  in  the  press  of 
the  crowd.  It  is  as  easy  to  lose  sight  of 
a  man  in  the  dust  as  in  the  clouds.  Al- 
though the  clergyman  of  to-day  is  a  man 
mingling  constantly  with  men,  no  other 
man  in  the  community  is  so  imperfectly 
understood. 

But  you  are  not  altogether  to  blame  for 
not  knowing  him.  You  are  busy,  of 
course ;  I  know  that.  His  work  is  differ- 
ent from  yours.  He  does  it  in  solitude. 
And  he  never  tells  you  about  himself.  If 
a  clergyman  talks  about  himself  he  is  put 
down  as  an  egotist.  If  he  mentions  his 
work  in  conversation  he  is  talking  "shop." 
He  cannot  complain.  He  cannot  protest 
against  injustice.  He  cannot  explain  him- 
self   or  defend    himself,    or  lay  bare  the 


The  Unknown  Man.  y 

secrets  of  his  interior  life  ;  for  Sundays  are 
few,  and  on  those  days  he  must  tell  the 
people  not  of  himself,  but  of  One  whom 
to  know  is  life  eternal. 

The  result  is,  the  preacher  is  the  un- 
known man  of  modern  society.  The 
world  thinks  it  knows  him,  but  it  does 
not.  The  most  that  it  says  about  him  is 
erroneous.  Dame  Rumor  repeats  stories 
about  his  frailties  and  his  idiosyncrasies, 
and  jocose  writers  picture  him  in  divers 
attitudes  and  colors,  but  he  remains 
unknown. 

I  have  often  wished  that  preachers  had 
time  to  talk  now  and  then  to  their  con- 
gregations a  little  about  themselves.  It 
would  make  them  less  professional,  and 
more  human  to  their  people.  It  is  sin- 
gular no  book  has  ever  yet  been  written 
giving  authentic  glimpses  of  the  ministe- 
rial world  for  the  edification  of  laymen. 
Unnumbered  volumes  have  been  written 
by  clergymen  for  the  benefit  of  theolo- 
gical   students,    pointing    out    perils   and 


8       Quiet  Talks  WitJi  Earnest  People. 

burdens,  and  explaining  methods  and  pro- 
cesses, and  ministers  are  constantly  tell- 
ing one  another  of  their  experiences  and 
needs ;  but  little  has  been  written  or 
spoken  for  the  purpose  of  letting  laymen 
into  the  secrets  and  mysteries  of  minis- 
terial activity  and  being.  And  herein  the 
whole  church  suffers  loss.  Knowledge  is 
essential  to  sympathy,  and  sympathy  is 
indispensable  to  power ;  and  power  is  the 
one  thing  which  the  church  has  been 
promised,  and  which  it  most  conspicuously 
and  lamentably  lacks.  We  may  expect 
a  new  Pentecost  when  laymen  learn  to 
put  themselves  into  the  minister's  place. 
When  we  know  each  other  better,  some  of 
the  mists  will  roll  away. 


The  Maligned  Man. 


11. 

The  Maligned  Man. 

I  WAS  saying  that  the  clergyman  is  the 
unknown  man  of  modern  society.  Be- 
cause unknown  he  is  maligned.  The 
world  charges  the  clergyman  with  three 
cardinal  sins,  —  laziness,  covetousness,  and 
cowardice.  It  suspects  him  of  a  half- 
dozen  others,  but  it  is  sure  of  these  three. 
To  multitudes  of  men  the  minister  is  a 
gentleman  of  starched  and  elegant  leisure, 
a  lover  of  filthy  lucre,  a  trimmer  who  cuts 
his  discourses  to  fit  his  congregation.  I 
suspect  many  Christians  are  not  aware 
how  vast  are  the  areas  of  society  in  which 
this  estimate  is  almost  universally  ac- 
cepted. 

That  a  clergyman  should  be  considered 
a  loafer  is  not  strange.  He  does  his  work 
in  solitude.     Men  see  him  as  he  rides  in 


lO     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

a  carriage  to  marry  a  couple  for  a  hand- 
some fee,  or  as  he  offers  remarks  at  a 
funeral,  or  as  he  speaks  in  the  pulpit,  or 
as  he  sits  in  a  rocking-chair  discussing  the 
weather  with  some  member  of  his  flock, 
all  of  which  the  average  man  feels  himself 
capable  of  performing  without  effort  or 
fatigue.  All  other  men  —  the  farmer,  the 
mechanic,  the  merchant,  the  builder  —  do 
their  work  where  they  can  be  seen  of  men  ; 
but  the  minister  does  his  work  in  solitude. 
Not  one  of  you  ever  saw  a  clergyman 
work.  The  harder  he  toils  in  secret,  the 
more  easily  he  preaches.  This  ease  be- 
comes added  proof  that  preaching  is  to 
him  as  easy  as  breathing,  and  that  there- 
fore he  does  not  work  at  all.  His  work, 
moreover,  is  mental.  It  is  hard  to  con- 
vince hand  workers  that  head  workers 
really  work.  The  perspiring  farmer  in 
the  cornfield  will  not  believe  that  the 
dainty  artist  at  his  easel  beneath  a  tree 
is  working.  Nor  can  a  mechanic  readily 
believe    that    a    man    who    reads    books 


The  Maligned  Man.  1 1 

through  the  week  and  on  Sunday  exhorts 
people  to  be  good  has  as  hard  a  job  as 
he  has.  It  must  needs  be  that  to  many 
men  the  clergyman  should  seem  an  idler. 

Shall  I  shock  you  when  I  say  that  the 
clergyman  belongs  to  the  laboring  classes, 
and  that  no  man  has  a  longer  day  than 
he }  An  eight  or  ten  or  even  a  twelve 
hour  day  would  not  be  sufficient  for  his 
work.  No  mechanic  in  the  country  works 
as  many  hours  a  day  as  the  faithful  clergy- 
man. Brain  work  cannot  be  done  in  the 
streets,  and  timed  by  the  town  clock,  but 
it  is  work.  The  hardest  work  done  in  this 
world  is  brain  work.  Labor  cannot  be 
measured  by  the  beads  of  sweat  on  the 
forehead.  Work  cannot  be  estimated  in 
hours.  It  must  be  computed  by  expen- 
diture of  nervous  energy,  measured  in 
ounces  of  vitality.  The  artist  may  pour 
out  in  a  day  more  life  on  the  canvas  than 
the  farmer  on  his  cornfield.  A  man  in 
writing  a  discourse  can  expend  in  three 
hours  more  nerve-force  than  a  hodcarrier 


12      Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

will  expend  in  ten.  In  the  higher  moods 
of  the  mind,  a  single  hour  of  creative  work 
will  leave  a  man  sapless  and  limp.  Never 
allow  yourself  to  use  the  term  "laboring 
classes  "  in  referring  to  wage-earners. 
The  expression  is  misleading,  and  perpetu- 
ates the  ancient  delusion  that  breaking 
down  cells  in  the  muscles  is  labor,  while 
breaking  down  cells  in  the  brain  is  play. 
Why  should  men  who  use  their  hands  be 
considered  laborers  any  more  than  teachers 
and  doctors  and  lawyers  and  preachers } 
But  this  brain  work  is  not  all.  There  is 
heart  work.  The  sweat  of  the  heart  has 
more  blood  in  it  than  the  sweat  of  the 
brow.  To  ride  to  a  funeral  is  easy ;  but  to 
bear  daily  the  grief  of  wrecked  homes  — 
such  labor  bowed  to  the  earth  the  Son  of 
God  himself. 

It  is  because  the  minister  is  counted  an 
idler  that  the  world  is  so  sensitive  con- 
cerning his  salary.  It  nettles  men  to  see 
a  man  paid  for  doing  nothing.  The  size 
of  a  minister's  salary  is  always  a  matter  of 


The  Maligned  Man.  1 3 

concern  to  the  entire  community.  And  it 
is  a  saying  repeated  with  rehsh  that  a 
minister  always  feels  called  of  the  Lord 
to  labor  in  the  field  which  offers  the  lar- 
gest financial  returns. 

That  men  should  say  this  is  to  be  ex- 
pected. We  always  read  others  through 
ourselves.  A  man's  heart  is  the  lens 
through  which  he  sees  the  world.  The 
average  man  lives  at  the  level  of  dollars 
and  cents.  How  can  he  be  expected  to 
acknowledge  that  human  nature  can  be 
swayed  by  motives. higher  than  his  own.? 
A  few  facts  are  worth  remembering.  A 
clergyman  has  a  divine  right  to  compen- 
sation. He  has,  ordinarily,  at  least  ;^I5,- 
000  invested  in  his  head  ;  and  capital  is 
entitled  to  some  'return.  He  is  a  laborer ; 
and,  as  a  workman,  he  is  worthy  of  his 
meat.  The  vast  majority  of  clergymen 
are  underpaid.  No  other  men  do  so  much 
work  for  so  little  money  as  they.  Brain 
commands  higher  prices  in  every  other 
profession   than    in    the    ministry.      That 


14     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

clergymen  always  rush  to  the  church 
which  pays  best  is  false.  A  thousand 
clergymen  in  the  United  States  can  stand 
up  and  prove  its  falsity.  The  sneer  which 
condemns  a  preacher  for  leaving  a  small 
church  for  a  large  one  is  both  wicked  and 
silly.  A  clergyman,  unless  providentially 
hindered,  ought  to  accept  the  leadership 
of  the  largest  church  which  he  is  capable 
of  serving.  Every  man  ought  to  enter  the 
largest  door  which  Providence  opens  in  his 
face.  Why  condemn  a  minister  for  follow- 
ing the  dictates  of  common  sense,  and  for 
doing  what  is  clearly  a  duty  } 

And  is  the  average  minister  a  trimmer } 
No !  When  you  hear  men  say  so,  deny 
it.  It  is  your  duty  to  deny  it,  unless 
you  know  the  assertion  to  be  true.  No 
one  can  injure  the  reputation  of  a  clergy- 
man without  weakening  the  influence  of 
the  church  universal,  and  hurting  souls  — 
it  may  be  fatally.  The  world  suffers 
more  than  you  are  apt  to  think  every 
time  a  minister  is  vilified.     "Then  I  and 


The  Maligned  MaJt.  1 5 

you  and  all  of  us  "  fall  down,  and  earth's 
base  seems  to  be  built  on  stubble.  If 
your  minister,  perchance,  happens  to  be 
a  trimmer,  then  work  unceasingly  to  get 
him  out  of  the  pulpit.  Do  not  simply 
talk.  In  God's  name  act !  To  laymen  is 
committed  no  more  important  work  than 
deposing  ministers  who  are  unworthy, 
and  strengthening  the  arms  of  those  who 
are  true.  There  are  more  brave  men  in 
the  pulpits  of  Christendom  than  in  any 
army  which  ever  followed  a  general  to 
the  mouths  of  the  guns.  To  be  sure, 
there  is  an  occasional  man  who,  like  a 
coward,  strikes  only  distant  evils  and  sins 
which  may  be  safely  hit ;  but  even  in  the 
apostolic  band  there  was  a  man  whose 
name  was  Judas. 


1 6     Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 


III. 

The  Misunderstood  Man. 

A  POET  has  suggested  that  much  might 
be  gained  could  we  see  ourselves  as 
others  see  us ;  but  the  gain  would  be 
even  greater  if  others  could  see  us  as 
we  really  are.  It  would  from  many  a  mis- 
conception free  them.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  has  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  every  conversation  between  two 
people  there  are  six  persons  present. 
There  is  the  first  person  as  God  sees  him, 
as  the  second  person  sees  him,  and  as  he 
sees  himself.  There  is  the  second  person 
as  God  sees  him,  as  the  first  person  sees 
him,  and  as  he  sees  himself.  If  this  is 
true,  there  must  be  a  regiment  of  minis- 
ters in  every  parish  of  a  thousand  people. 
Each  member  of  the  parish  sees  the 
minister  at    a   different  angle,  and  these 


The  Misunderstood  Man.  17 

thousand  imaginary  men  form  a  nimbus 
around  the  real  minister,  conceahng  him 
from  everybody  but  God  alone.  Just 
as  Agassiz  could  form  a  fish  from  a  single 
scale,  so  many  persons  have  a  fashion 
of  constructing  ministers  from  a  splinter 
of  a  sermon,  or  a  fragment  of  a  course  of 
action.  An  album  containing  a  thousand 
portraits  of  himself  as  photographed  on 
the  minds  of  a  thousand  people  would 
be  an  interesting  volume  for  a  pastor's 
library.  It  might  humble  him  in  the 
dust,  but  it  would  also  bring  consolation. 
If  some  of  the  portraits  were  black  as 
Beelzebub,  others  would  grace  him  with 
the  glory  of  an  archangel. 

It  is  a  current  saying  that  clergymen 
do  not  understand  people.  Let  us  turn 
it  round,  and  say  that  people  do  not 
understand  clergymen.  Why  cannot  a 
minister  understand  people  .'*  He  works 
with  human  nature  all  the  time.  His 
library  is  stocked  with  books  that  analyze 
it,  and  discuss  it  in  all  its  manifold  varie- 


1 8     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

ties  and  operations.  He  is  brought  into 
closer  contact  with  men  than  any  other 
man  in  the  community.  He  touches  men 
on  more  sides  of  their  nature.  He  hears 
death-bed  revelations.  He  knows  secrets 
which  are  intrusted  to  none  other.  He 
hears  confessions  of  guilt  and  crime 
which  do  not  get  into  the  papers.  He 
knows  closets  with  skeletons  in  them  of 
whose  existence  the  community  does  not 
dream.  He  has  an  e^ttr^e  into  homes 
whose  doors  are  shut  to  the  world.  He 
is  with  the  sick,  and  the  remorseful,  and 
the  poor,  and  the  heartbroken.  He  lis- 
tens to  men's  aspirations  and  doubts  and 
fears,  and  complaints  and  anxieties,  and 
loves  and  hates,  and  blasphemies  and  de- 
spairs. And  yet  he  does  not  know 
human  nature !  It  makes  me  smile  to 
hear  a  business  man  say,  in  a  supercilious 
tone,  that  preachers  do  not  know  people. 
This  business  man  knows  several  church- 
members  who  do  not  pay  their  debts, 
and  therefore  the  guileless  minister  would 


The  Misunderstood  Man.  19 

be  very  much  surprised,  if  he  only  knew 
how  many  wolves  in  sheep's  clothing  are 
masquerading  under  his  very  nose  —  as 
though  the  clergyman  does  not  know 
more  of  the  hypocrisies  and  inconsisten- 
cies and  unworthinesses  of  professing 
Christians  than  any  merchant  in  the 
town !  Ministers  may  seem  innocent  and 
nawe^  but  they  know  more  of  what  is 
going  on  than  the  average  man  gives 
them  credit  for  knowing. 

I  suppose  they  are  counted  ignorant 
of  the  world  because  on  Sunday  they  do 
not  manifest  that  sort  of  omniscience 
which  the  daily  press  displays.  But  a 
wise  clergyman,  knowing  that  his  people 
through  the  week  have  had  their  minds 
stained  and  marred  by  the  base  and  dis- 
mal, endeavors  on  Sunday  to  fix  their 
hearts  on  things  above.  His  refusal  to 
go  into  the  puddle  does  not  prove  his 
ignorance  of  it.  Or  is  it  because  minis- 
ters do  not  indulge  in  the  common  vices 
of  men  }     A  man  may  know  what  is  in 


20     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

men,  and  yet  not  accompany  them  in  their 
sinning.  Every  clergyman  has  in  him  all 
the  passions  and  powers  by  whose  wrong 
use  men  become  scapegraces  and  villains. 

But  this  notion  is  overtopped  in  pre- 
posterousness  by  the  idea  that  a  clergy- 
man has  a  better  chance  to  be  good  than 
anybody  else.  The  opinion  is  quite  gen- 
eral among  laymen.  They  ground  their 
conviction  on  the  fact  that  a  minister  is 
obliged  by  his  calling  to  move  in  good 
society.  Men  hide  their  vices  and  curb 
their  tongues  in  his  presence.  He  need 
not  touch  anything  unclean.  He  lives 
in  his  study  and  in  the  pulpit,  and  into 
neither  place  can  the  devil  make  his  way. 
So  it  seems  to  many  a  layman.  Many 
men  are  obliged  to  do  their  work  among 
profane  and  foul-mouthed  companions. 
Multiplied  incitements  to  evil  solicit  them 
on  every  side.  It  is  not  strange  that 
such  men  should  look  upon  the  clergy- 
man as  sheltered  from  the  darts  of  the 
evil   one,  and    as  enjoying   an    immunity 


The  Misunderstood  Man.  2 1 

from    temptation    which    is    denied   to  all 
other  mortals. 

A  minister  on  a  pedestal  has  little  in- 
fluence over  men.  Unless  he  is  in  all 
points  tempted  like  his  brethren,  he  can- 
not be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  their 
infirmities.  It  is  important,  therefore, 
for  laymen  to  remember  that  the  battle 
of  life  is  for  all.  Men  may  fight  at  dif- 
ferent levels ;  but  no  matter  where  they 
stand,  they  are  on  a  battlefield.  Some 
sins  are  coarse  and  carnal,  and  others  fine 
and  subtle ;  but  all  alike  separate  the  soul 
from  God.  There  is  no  hedge  around 
the  minister.  He  has  all  the  temptations 
of  other  men,  and  some  additional  of  his 
own.  The  devil  has  access  to  his  study. 
He  was  in  Luther's  study  when  the  re- 
former threw  his  inkstand  at  him.  He 
can  ascend  the  pulpit  stairs.  He  often 
does.  What  a  host  of  demons  the  clergy- 
man is  obliged  to  meet  and  conquer ! 
What  opportunities  for  him  to  be  a  dem- 
agogue,    a    coward,     a     mischief-maker ! 


22     Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

How  easy  to  pose  as  a  defender  of  the 
faith,  and  cast  insinuations  on  his  brother 
minister  who  reads  the  gospel  with  a  dif- 
ferent emphasis  !  How  easy  to  be  vain 
of  a  fine  voice  or  a  superb  presence ! 
How  easy  to  be  envious  of  men  just  a 
little  ahead  of  him  in  power  and  fame ! 
How  easy  to  be  lazy,  uncharitable,  deceit- 
ful, domineering,  autocratic,  or  peevish ! 
How  easy  to  wilt  under  discouragement ! 
How  easy  to  commit  any  of  the  sins  to 
which  our  frail  humanity  is  prone !  The 
number  of  Christian  ministers  who  in 
each  generation  have  gone  down  the 
broad  road  while  urging  men  to  choose 
the  narrow  one  is  conclusive  proof  that 
clergymen,  above  all  other  men,  need  to 
put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God  in  order 
to  stand  against  the  wiles  of  the  devil. 

The  fact  that  the  minister  deals  con- 
stantly with  spiritual  things  is  proof  to 
the  unthinking  that  saintship  to  him 
comes  easy,  whereas  the  constant  han- 
dling  of   high   ideas   and  moral   truths   is 


TJie  Misunderstood  Man.  23 

a  source  of  constant  danger.  Familiarity 
has  a  tendency  to  deaden  sensibility ;  and 
just  as  soldiers  often  become  blasphe- 
mous on  the  battlefield,  and  undertakers 
sometirnes  come  to  look  on  death  without 
a  trace  of  awe,  so  a  minister,  unless  he 
prays  and  watches,  will  have  at  last  a 
heart  unresponsive  to  the  very  truth 
which  he  is  sent  to  teach.  It  is  some- 
thing to  be  remembered  always  that  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  fell  into  a  deeper 
ditch  than  did  the  publicans  and  harlots. 


24     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 


IV. 

The  Importance  of  Knowing  Him. 

Every  layman  believes  that  the  minis- 
ter should  know  his  people.  Every  cler- 
gyman believes  that  too.  All  through 
his  seminary  course  the  importance  of 
knowing  his  people,  their  names,  dispo- 
sitions, occupations,  habits,  and  needs  is 
dinned  into  him.  Every  minister  who 
understands  his  business  works  constantly 
to  establish  a  personal  friendly  relation 
between  himself  and  his  people.  With- 
out this  relation  his  preaching  comes  to 
naught. 

But  it  is  equally  important  that  a  lay- 
man should  know  his  pastor.  It  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  the  clergyman  should  go 
all  the  way.  He  cannot  if  he  would.  The 
distance  between  two  souls  is  so  great 
that  while    both    together  can  bridge  it, 


The  Importance  of  Knowing  Him.    25 

the  bridging  can  be  accomplished  by 
neither  one  alone.  If  it  is  Christian  and 
necessary  for  a  minister  to  enter  into  the 
needs  and  experiences  of  his  people,  it  is 
no  less  necessary  and  Christian  that  lay- 
men should  enter  into  the  life  and  labors 
of  their  pastor.  It  is  important  for  the 
layman  himself.  If  he  does  not  know  his 
pastor,  he  cannot  love  him.  If  he  does 
not  love  him,  he  will  not  be  moulded  by 
him.  Love  is  the  only  flame  hot  enough 
to  render  the  soul  plastic.  For  the  min- 
ister's sake  also  it  is  essential  that  his 
people  should  know  him.  His  work  is 
the  building  of  men.  He  cannot  trans- 
form men  who  are  not  responsive  to  his 
touch.  And  thus  if  laymen  fail  to  under- 
stand their  pastor,  his  efforts  are  nullified, 
the  power  of  the  church  is  crippled,  and 
the  progress  of  God's  kingdom  checked. 

Let  me  suggest,  then,  brethren,  that 
you  get  closer  to  the  minister.  Get  as 
close  to  him  as  you  can.  In  the  church 
meetings  get  near  him.     The  world  con- 


26     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

demns  the  clergy  for  poor  speaking.  The 
world  forgets  that  the  majority  of  min- 
isters are  obliged  to  speak  under  con- 
ditions which  render  effective  speaking 
impossible.  The  most  expert  operator 
cannot  send  a  telegram  if  the  wire  is  cut, 
nor  can  the  greatest  orator  speak  with 
power  if  separated  from  his  audience. 
Cultivate,  I  beseech  you,  a  love  for  the 
front  pews. 

Get  near  him  in  your  difficulties.  The 
abuse  of  the  confessional  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  has  made  Protestants 
shy  of  confession.  But  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  it  is  the  confessional, 
and  not  confession,  against  which  Protes- 
tantism protests.  The  former  is  mis- 
chievous and  dangerous,  the  latter  is 
good  for  the  soul.  The  confessional  is 
built  on  a  heaven-implanted  instinct, — 
the  instinct  which  prompts  us  to  seek 
relief  by  sharing  our  sin  or  sorrow  or 
perplexity  with  another.  The  institution 
would   not   have   survived   its   monstrous 


The  Importance  of  Knowing  Him.     27 

abuse  had  not  the  instinct  been  deep- 
seated  and  ineradicable.  Compulsory  con- 
fession is  tyranny,  but  voluntary  personal 
conference  is  rational  and  Scriptural. 
Why  not  use  your  pastor  more  }  A  half- 
hour's  conversation  with  him  may  bring 
you  more  relief  than  a  score  of  sermons. 
Every  life  has  its  doubts  and  perplexi- 
ties, its  remorses  and  despondencies ;  and 
many  a  Christian  flounders  in  darkness 
for  years  rather  than  let  his  pastor  know 
that  he  is  floundering.  Many  difficulties 
and  doubts  vanish  in  the  light  of  larger 
knowledge,  and  all  burdens  are  lightened 
when  told  to  a  friend.  Make  the  pastor 
your  friend. 

Get  close  to  him  in  his  work.  Seize 
his  view-point.  Grasp  his  plans.  He 
will  not  command  you,  but  he  advises 
you.  His  advice  ought  to  have  in  it 
something  of  the  urgency  and  majesty  of 
a  command.  Do  not  be  afraid  to  obey 
him.  Obedience  is  a  virtue  worth  culti- 
vating.    There  is  none  greater  or  rarer. 


28     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

The  mediaeval  doctrine  of  priestly  author- 
ity we  Protestants  have  discarded,  but  it 
was  based  upon  a  truth.  In  the  New 
Testament  the  minister  is  given  a  place 
which  we  are  just  now  in  danger  of  deny- 
ing him. 

If  you  are  close  enough  to  him,  you 
will  not  allow  men  to  rehearse  in  your 
presence  the  stock  yarns  about  clergy- 
men which  the  world  delights  to  repeat. 
Human  nature  is  prone  to  act  upon  the 
principle,  "From  one  learn  all;"  but  never 
does  it  so  act  with  such  alacrity  as  when 
sitting  in  judgment  upon  ministers.  A 
minister  marries  a  rich  wife,  and  almost 
immediately  discovers  that  his  throat  is 
weak.  Whereupon  it  becomes  an  adage 
that  clergymen,  like  other  men,  loaf  when 
they  can.  The  son  of  a  clergyman  de- 
generates into  a  scapegrace ;  and  in  time 
that  one  boy  becomes  in  the  world's  ears 
a  million  boys,  and  the  lying  remark  that 
a  minister's  children  are  always  the  .worst 
in  the  community  hardens  into  imperish- 


TJie  Importance  of  Knowing  Him.     29 

able  tradition.  An  absent-minded,  unprac- 
tical clerical  bookworm  fails  to  measure 
the  value  of  money  or  the  nature  of 
men,  and  a  story  illustrative  of  the  folly 
of  the  simpleton  is  published  from  Dan 
to  Beersheba  as  an  example  of  the  nin- 
nies and  theorizers  who  have  set  them- 
selves up  as  prophets  in  Israel.  An 
indolent  Reverend  preaches  old  sermons, 
and  jokes  about  his  barrel  which  he 
keeps  turning  over ;  and  his  stupid  joke 
is  told  wherever  the  gospel  is  preached, 
not  so  much  as  a  memorial  of  him  as  a 
condemnation  of  the  whole  race  of  preach- 
ers. A  clergyman  is  at  the  mercy  of 
the  community.  If  church-members  do 
not  defend  him,  who  will  t  His  reputa- 
tion lies  all  exposed,  and  any  one  can 
injure  it  who  chooses.  A  clergyman 
with  a  reputation  spotted  is  impotent. 
His  reputation  is  as  important  as  his 
character.  Other  men  can  dispense  with 
reputation,  and  do  their  work  success- 
fully.     To    the    clergyman    both    reputa- 


30     Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

tion  and  character  are  indispensable.  The 
farmer  can  sell  his  pigs  and  oats  no  mat- 
ter what  his  neighbors  say  of  him.  The 
shrewd  merchant  can  amass  a  fortune, 
even  though  a  reputed  libertine.  The 
able  lawyer  can  command  an  extensive 
practice,  however  rumor  may  busy  her- 
self with  his  name.  But  a  clergyman 
cannot  do  his  work  if  on  his  reputation 
there  is  a  single  stain.  God  is  satisfied 
with  character  alone,  but  men  are  not. 
They  demand  reputation  too.  No  mat- 
ter how  wise  a  clergyman  may  be,  he 
can  have  little  influence  if  supposed  to 
be  a  dunce.  No  matter  how  saintly,  his 
words  are  without  weight  if  men  suspect 
his  piety.  His  influence  is  conditioned 
on  the  confidence  and  love  of  those  to 
whom  he  ministers.  To  lie  about  him 
is  to  shut  men's  hearts  against  him.  It 
was  not  from  idle  curiosity  that  Jesus 
asked  the  question,  "  Whom  do  men  say 
that  I  am } "  His  influence  over  men 
depended    not   simply   on   what   he   was, 


The  Importance  of  Knowing  Him.     3 1 

but  on  men's  estimate  of  him.  And  as 
soon  as  he  found  a  man  whose  concep- 
tion of  him  was  adequate  and  true,  he 
mounted  at  once  into  a  great  joy,  and 
saw  in  vision  a  church  against  which  the 
gates  of  Hades  could  not  prevail. 


32     Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 


V. 

The  Sermon, 

I  THINK  I  heard  one  of  you  say  a  little 
while  ago  that  in  your  opinion  the  preach- 
ing of  to-day  does  not  come  up  to  the 
demands  of  the  times.  I  knew  you  would 
say  that,  and  I  agree  with  you.  A  great 
many  ministers  are  just  as  certain  of  that 
as  you  are.  It  is  not  enough  to  say,  as  is 
often  done,  that  the  preaching  of  to-day  is 
far  superior  to  that  of  any  preceding  age. 
As  a  statement  this  is  true,  but  as  an  ar- 
gument it  is  fallacious.  It  does  not  cover 
the  case.  The  vital  question  is,  Has 
preaching  in  the  last  half  century  kept 
pace  with  the  general  advance  in  culture  .-* 
And  to  this  question  the  answer,  I  think, 
must  be.  No.  That  the  average  preach- 
ing in  America  to-day  is  far  below  the 
legitimate  demand  of  the  pews  is,  to  my 


The  Sermon.  33 

mind,  a  fact  which  cannot  be  successfully 
evaded. 

You  laymen,  I  imagine,  are  generally 
agreed  that  there  is  something  wrong  with 
the  sermon.  You  find  it  difficult  to  say 
just  what  is  lacking,  but  of  the  lack  you 
are  altogether  certain.  You  do  not  agree 
among  yourselves  when  you  offer  expla- 
nations, and  I  am  afraid  many  of  your  ex- 
planations will  not  bear  analysis.  Some 
of  you  say  that  the  cause  of  all  the  trouble 
is  laziness,  others  say  stupidity,  others  say 
profundity,  others  say  other-worldliness, 
while  still  others  of  you  confess  that  you 
are  all  at  sea,  and  do  not  know  how  to 
diagnose  a  disease  so  complicated  and  dis- 
tressing. You  are  sure  of  one  thing,  and 
that  is  that  the  culprit  is  the  preacher. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  are 
sluggards  in  the  pulpit.  But  there  would 
not  be  so  many  if  the  laymen  did  their 
duty,  and  drove  these  sluggards  out. 
There  is  also  an  occasional  minister  who 
has  not    many  convolutions   in  the  gray 


34     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

matter  of  the  brain.  But  these  men  con- 
stitute so  small  a  minority  of  the  modern 
army  of  preachers  that  we  may  drop  them 
from  our  discussion,  and  pass  on  to  con- 
sider the  alleged  sin  of  preaching  sermons 
too  profound. 

When  laymen  fail  to  take  an  interest  in 
their  pastor's  sermons,  and  try  to  follow 
his  arguments  in  vain,  they  are  some- 
times generous  enough  to  attribute  their 
failure  to  their  own  stupidity  and  their 
pastor's  extraordinary  powers  of  thinking. 
It  is  comforting  to  many  laymen  to  feel 
that  their  pastor's  sermons  are  profound, 
even  though  the  sermons  fail  to  give  them 
either  light  or  strength.  And  occasionally 
a  clergyman,  doomed  by  his  limitations  to 
preach  to  a  drowsy  dozen,  consoles  him- 
self with  the  delusion  that  it  is  nothing 
but  the  profundity  of  his  thought  which 
prevents  the  common  people  from  listen- 
ing to  him  gladly. 

But  no  sermon  ever  fails  because  of 
its    depth.     The    deep    preachers    whom 


TJie  Sermon.  35 

nobody  cares  to  hear  are  not  deep  at  all. 
He  is  a  shallow  man  who,  commissioned 
to  bear  a  message  to  the  people,  fails  to 
speak  that  message  in  a  language  which 
the  people  can  understand.      A  man   ca- 
pable of  keen  thought  sees  at  once  that  it 
is  his  business  to  preach  sermons  which 
will  feed  and  build  up  the  men  to  whom 
he  speaks.      A  preacher  only  dimly  under- 
stood   is    no    preacher    at    all.      It    is    an 
awful  condemnation  on  a  preacher  to  say 
that  his  sermon  is  above  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the   congregation  to   which   it   is 
delivered.      No  minister  has  ever  yet  been 
hampered     by     excessive     profundity     of 
thought.       Many,     however,     have     been 
handicapped   by  ignorance   in   the  use  of 
words.     It  is  not  excessive  thought,  but 
defective  language,  which  puts  people  to 
sleep,  and  empties  the  pews.     The  plain- 
est congregation  can  take  in  the  greatest 
thoughts  which  the  brainiest  thinker  can 
clothe  in  words.     The  sublimest  concep- 
tions  can    be    expressed    in    homely    sen- 


36     Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

tences.  The  two  profoundest  preachers 
whom  America  has  yet  produced,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  and  Phillips  Brooks,  were 
also  the  simplest  in  language,  and  the 
most  easily  understood. 

Simplicity  is  one  of  the  marks  of  great- 
ness. So  it  has  been  from  the  beginning. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whose  eyes  pierced  the 
depths,  spoke  always  in  familiar  words, 
and  never  did  he  rise  higher  than  when 
talking  to  an  unlettered  woman  who  gave 
him  a  drink  at  the  well.  What  is  taken 
for  profundity  of  thought  in  the  pulpit  is 
often  only  technicality  of  language.  The 
simplest  thoughts  may  become  obscure 
when  couched  in  language  which  is 
cloudy.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  min- 
isters that  throughout  their  seminary 
course  they  read  almost  exclusively 
heavily  Latinized  English,  and  become 
addicted  to  the  use  of  the  dialect  of 
criticism  and  the  patois  of  philosophy. 
Unconsciously  to  himself  a  clergyman 
often    drops    the    language   of   the   home 


The  Sermon.  37 

and  the  street,  and  speaks  the  language 
of  the  schools.  Unless  he  keeps  a  sharp 
and  constant  eye  upon  his  language,  and 
reads  with  care  the  most  human  novelists 
and  sweetest  poets,  he  will  find  himself 
preaching  in  some  other  language  than 
that  wherein  his  congregation  were  born. 
There  are  no  Pentecostal  miracles  unless 
preacher  and  people  speak  the  same  lan- 
guage. You  are  to  be  pitied,  brethren, 
if  your  preacher  preaches  to  you  in  the 
technical  vocabulary  of  modern  science 
or  the  cold  and  abstract  phrases  of  meta- 
physics. 

Nor  are  you  correct  when  you  say 
preachers  are  too  doctrinal.  Many  are 
not  doctrinal  enough.  It  is  doctrine 
which  a  preacher  is  ordained  to  preach. 
If  he  ceases  to  be  doctrinal,  his  occupa- 
tion is  gone.  The  great  doctrines  of  the 
Christian  faith  —  such  as  the  fatherhood 
of  God,  the  deity  of  Christ,  the  presence 
and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the 


38     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

judgment  day,  the  life  eternal  —  cannot 
be  preached  too  frequently.  Congrega- 
tions fed  on  doctrines  such  as  these  have 
red  blood  and  endurance.  All  others  are 
scrawny  and  impotent.  When  you  cry 
out  against  doctrinal  preaching,  you  are 
using  the  wrong  adjective.  You  mean  to 
say  that  you  do  not  like  preaching  which 
is  metaphysical  or  speculative  or  scholas- 
tic. You  have  no  taste  for  theories. 
You  love  truth.  You  are  weary  of 
speculations.  You  are  hungry  for  facts. 
You  do  not  want  the  guesses  of  men,  but 
the  doctrines  of  Jesus.  You  desire  not 
only  the  sky  ends  but  the  earth  ends  of 
the  gospel.  And  you  ought  to  have 
them.  Blessed  are  you  if  you  have  in 
your  pulpit  a  man  who  can  breathe  easily 
the  difficult  air  of  the  steep  mountain-tops 
of  spiritual  experience,  and  who  can  tell 
you  on  the  Lord's  Day,  in  the  sweet,  fa- 
miliar words  of  home,  the  things  which 
he  has  seen  and  heard. 


What  Is  the  Matter  f  39 


VI. 

What  Is  The  Matter? 

No,  I  have  no  objection  to  telling  you 
what  I  conceive  to  be  the  radical  defect 
in  much  of  the  preaching  of  our  time.  It 
is  lack  of  spiritual  passion.  The  tone  of 
authority  is  faint.  Too  much  of  the  preach- 
ing is  like  that  of  the  Scribes.  Clergymen 
are  numerous,  but  prophets  are  few. 

Here  lies  the  trouble.  Only  a  prophet 
can  achieve  genuine  success  in  these  hur- 
ried and  fascinating  days.  Time  was  when 
a  scholar  could  do  it.  When  books  were 
expensive,  and  locked  up  in  the  libraries 
of  the  elite,  a  man  versed  in  book-lore  could 
find  a  Sunday  audience  eager  to  listen  to 
the  information  which  he  was  willing  to 
impart.  Those  days  are  gone.  Before  the 
rise  of  the  daily  paper,  the  preacher  could 
be  an  editor,  and  make  his  sermons  running 


40     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

commentaries  on  current  events.  That 
sort  of  preaching  was  once  counted  suc- 
cessful. It  is  a  failure  now.  Before  the 
multiplication  of  lecture  platforms  and 
music-halls  and  art-galleries,  and  other 
sources  of  intellectual  entertainment  and 
aesthetic  gratification,  fine  music  from  the 
organ  loft,  and  exquisite  essays  from  the 
pulpit,  seemed  to  satisfy  all  reasonable 
demands.  But  music,  while  it  may  still 
have  charms  to  soothe  the  savage  breast, 
is  not  conspicuously  successful  in  attract- 
ing non-church-goers  into  the  house  of  God. 
And  much  of  the  finest  literary  work  dis- 
played at  present  in  American  pulpits 
seems  to  be  hopelessly  lost  on  this  un- 
kempt and  stiff-necked  generation.  Even 
the  pulpit  reformer  does  not  wear  his 
crown  long.  He  has  had  his  day,  like  the 
editor  preacher  and  the  rest.  By  striking 
one  special  evil  hard,  he  may  cause  the 
world  to  resound  for  a  season  with  the 
echoes  of  his  blows,  and  may  even  succeed 
in  chipping  off  a  fragment  of  some  false 


IV/iaf  Is  The  Matter  f  41 

custom  or  established  wrong ;  but  unless 
a  preacher  is  a  great  deal  more  than  a 
reformer,  he  cannot  long  hold  the  attention 
of  an  intelligent  congregation,  or  hope  to 
build  an  enduring  Christian  church.  In 
short,  the  poor  preacher  has  been  ousted 
from  the  snug  position  of  editor,  lecturer, 
essayist,  reformer;  and  there  is  nothing 
left  him  now  but  the  arduous  vocation  of 
a  prophet. 

And  this  has  been  his  true  place  from 
the  beginning.  His  other  positions  were 
either  usurped  or  thrust  upon  him  by  the 
exigencies  of  the  times.  The  printing- 
press  has  pushed  him  up  at  last  into  his 
proper  sphere.  If  he  attempts  now  to 
compete  with  other  men  in  their  fields  of 
labor,  he  invites  the  failure  which  he 
deserves.  The  position  of  a  minister  is 
unique.  His  mission  is  momentous.  His 
work,  while  fitting  into  the  labors  of  all 
other  servants  of  the  Lord,  is  different 
from  theirs.  The  moment  he  forsakes 
the  task  appointed  him,  and  attempts  to 


42     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

share  the  work  and  honors  of  other  men, 
swift  retribution  follows  in  his  track. 
Woe  to  the  preacher  who  in  these  mod- 
ern days  shirks  the  wrestlings  and  agonies 
of  the  prophet,  and  attempts  to  perform 
the  duties  assigned  to  others  ! 

And  yet  this  is  the  very  thing  which 
many  preachers  are  doing.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  discussion  ad  nauseam  through 
the  week  in  the  daily  press  of  every  hap- 
pening and  event,  there  are  preachers  who 
have  the  temerity  to  expect  people  to 
come  to  the  church  on  the  Lord's  Day  to 
hear  the  old  newspaper  straw  threshed  over 
again.  And  notwithstanding  every  cen- 
tre-table groans  with  periodicals  and  mag- 
azines edited  with  consummate  ability,  and 
filled  with  articles  written  in  many  cases 
by  the  pen  of  genius,  there  are  ministers 
who  dabble  on  the  Lord's  Day  in  literary 
discussion  and  philosophical  speculation, 
and  then  wonder  why  the  blessing  of  the 
Almighty  does  not  rest  upon  their  labors. 
There  is  an  itch  abroad  just  now  to  work 


What  Is  The  Matter?  43 

reforms.  Everything  is  being  overhauled, 
from  systems  of  theology  to  boards  of 
aldermen.  The  social  order  is  rotten,  the 
industrial  system  is  accursed,  the  ecclesi- 
astical regime  is  ripe  for  burning  —  so  men 
assert.  There  is  a  hubbub  of  discordant 
voices,  each  voice  screaming  out  a  pana- 
cea, and  promising  the  golden  age ;  and 
in  this  fury  for  readjustment  and  recon- 
struction, too  many  pulpits,  I  am  inclined 
to  think,  waste  their  time  and  strength. 
It  is  a  proof  of  Christ's  matchless  great- 
ness that  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  the 
Roman  empire  and  never  struck  it.  His 
work  was  to  strike  the  heart.  By  strik- 
ing the  hearts  of  peasants,  he  overturned 
the  empire.  He  says  to  his  heralds, 
"  Follow  me! " 

Unless  a  sermon  is  different  from  all 
other  forms  of  address,  the  world  to-day 
does  not  care  to  hear  it.  If  tired  men 
and  women  are  to  be  expected  to  attend 
public  worship  Sunday  morning,  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  house  of  God  must  be 


44    Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

made  different  from  that  which  these 
people  breathe  through  the  week.  The 
late  R.  H.  Hutton,  in  one  of  his  essays, 
says  that  Walter  Bagehot  once  asked  him 
to  hear  one  of  the  afternoon  sermons 
of  the  chaplain  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  Fred- 
erick D.  Maurice.  Bagehot  assured  Hut- 
ton  that  he  would  feel  that  something 
different  went  on  there  from  that  which 
went  on  in  an  ordinary  church  or  chapel 
service,  that  there  was  a  sense  of  "some- 
thing religious"  in  the  air  which  was 
not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  Bagehot's 
word  was  fulfilled.  Hutton  heard  and  saw 
and  felt  that  day  things  which  lived  in 
his  memory  through  life.  He  heard  a 
prophet.  Maurice  spoke  for  God.  The 
intense  and  thrilling  tones,  the  pathetic 
emphasis,  the  passionate  trust,  the  burn- 
ing exultation,  the  atmosphere  of  reve- 
rence and  devotion,  awed  and  subdued  the 
worshippers.  The  church  became  indeed 
a  holy  place.  The  words  of  the  service 
seemed   put    into   the   preacher's   mouth, 


What  is  the  Matter  f  45 

"while  he,  with  his  whole  soul  bent  on 
their  wonderful  drift,  uttered  them  as  an 
awe-struck  but  thankful  envoy  tells  the 
tale  of  danger  and  deliverance." 

It  is  this  ''  something  religious  "  which 
one  misses  in  too  many  of  our  American 
churches  and  in  too  much  of  our  modern 
preaching.  Bright  things,  true  things, 
helpful  things,  are  said  in  abundance,  but 
the  spiritual  passion  is  lacking.  The  ser- 
vice smacks  of  time  and  not  of  eternity. 
The  atmosphere  of  the  sermon  is  not 
that  of  Mount  Sinai  or  Mount  Calvary, 
but  that  of  the  professor's  room  or  the 
sanctum  of  the  editor.  The  intellect  is 
instructed,  the  emotions  are  touched,  but 
the  conscience  is  not  stirred,  nor  is  the 
will  compelled  to  appear  before  the  judg- 
ment throne  and  render  its  decision.  The 
old  tone  of  the  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord " 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets  is  lacking.  Men 
are  everywhere  hungering  and  waiting  for 
it,  but  in  many  churches  they  have  thus 
far  waited  for  it  in  vain. 


46    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 


VII. 

Who  Is  To  Blame? 

Nor  is  the  minister  altogether  to  blame. 
He  is  the  victim  of  circumstances  and 
the  Zeitgeist  and  —  laymen.  The  time 
was  when  people  lived  largely  in  villages. 
In  those  rural  days  the  minister  was 
preacher  and  teacher,  and  pastor  and  ad- 
ministrator, and  counsellor  and  general 
public  servant.  The  world  to-day  lives 
largely  in  cities,  and  it  is  the  carrying  of 
rural  traditions  into  city  conditions  which 
is  in  part  responsible  for  the  present 
dearth  of  strong  preaching;  It  is  the  old, 
old  story  of  laying  aside  the  command- 
ment of  God  and  holding  the  tradition 
of  men. 

In  village  days  every  man  was  expected 
to  be  able  to  do  a  dozen  different  things, 
and  the  preacher  was  not  an  exception  to 


W/io  Is  To  Blame  ?  47 

the  rule.  The  farmer  understood  a  dozen 
different  trades,  and  why  should  not  a 
clergyman  fill  a  dozen  different  positions  ? 
But 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties  ; 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth. 

The  village  has  developed  into  a  city, 
and  all  the  problems  have  changed.  The 
process  of  specialization  has  gone  steadily 
forward,  by  which  each  man  is  given 
some  one  specific  thing  to  do.  Each  de- 
partment of  work  is  divided  and  subdi- 
vided indefinitely,  thus  securing  greater 
concentration  and  an  increase  of  effi- 
ciency. The  expert  lawyer  masters  only 
one  province  of  law,  the  expert  physi- 
cian confines  himself  to  one  class  of  dis- 
eases, the  expert  editor  writes  on  only 
one  line  of  subjects,  the  expert  teacher 
teaches  only  the  fragment  of  one  branch 
of  knowledge  ;  but  the  minister  is  still 
expected  to  preach,  and  at  the  same  time 
do  a  hundred  other  things.  The  work 
connected   with   the  average   city  church 


48     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

is  sufficient  to  fill  the  time  and  exhaust 
the  energy  of  several  men,  but  in  the 
majority  of  cases  the  minister  is  left  to 
bear  all  the  burdens  alone.  He  must  be 
the  director  of  the  church's  manifold 
activities ;  he  must  make  pastoral  calls, 
after  the  fashion  of  his  country  ancestor ; 
he  must  be  public  servant,  answering  let- 
ters innumerable,  speaking  at  banquets, 
serving  on  committees,  presiding  at  meet- 
ings, acting  as  director  or  trustee  of  col- 
leges and  societies,  orating  at  anniver- 
saries, pushing  forward  lagging  reforms, 
encouraging  numberless  enterprises ;  and 
then,  fagged  in  body  and  jaded  in  mind, 
he  goes  into  the  pulpit  to  preach !  And 
you  laymen  —  some  of  you  —  wonder  why 
preachers  preach  no  better  than  they  do  ! 
The  wonder  is  that  we  can  preach  at  all. 
The  average  preacher  is  simply  sapped 
and  overwhelmed  by  the  avalanche  of 
demands  which  the  modern  world  makes 
upon  him. 

The  spirit  of  the  age  —  Matthew  Ar- 


Who  Is  To  Blame  f  49 

nold's  Zeitgeist — comes  in  to  make  mat- 
ters still  worse.  A  mania  for  organiza- 
tion has  seized  the  world.  The  distemper 
has  penetrated  the  life  of  the  churches. 
The  average  church  boasts  more  societies 
and  meetings  than  an  industrious  rose- 
bush displays  roses  in  June.  In  this  fury 
for  organization,  the  life  of  many  a  church 
is  being  ruthlessly  dissipated.  So  much 
time  and  energy  are  expended  in  keeping 
the  ponderous  and  complex  machinery  in 
motion  that  healthy  Christian  life  is  sac- 
rificed, and  effective  work  becomes  well- 
nigh  impossible.  The  church  suffers,  the 
home  suffers,  weary  mortals  suffer  —  es- 
pecially the  minister.  He  finds  himself 
the  business  manager  of  a  large  concern. 
He  must  keep  his  eye  on  all  sorts  of  so- 
cieties, clubs,  and  guilds.  He  must  attend 
the  meetings  of  these  at  stated  intervals 
or  be  suspicioned  of  lukewarmness  in 
the  Master's  cause.  The  modern  church 
may  win  applause  by  multiplying  its 
agencies   for  serving   men,  but   all   such 


50     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

apparent  progress  is  dearly  paid  for  when 
secured  at  the  expense  of  the  preacher. 
A  boys'  brigade  drill  or  a  soup-kitchen  or 
a  gymnasium  will  never  do  the  work  of 
a  searching  and  inspiring  sermon.  The 
word  of  the  Lord  coming  hot  and  strong 
from  prophetic  lips  is  the  one  thing 
which  the  church  can  never  dispense 
with  without  forfeiting  her  life.  Any- 
thing—  no  matter  how  excellent  in  itself 
—  will  in  the  long  run,  if  it  diminishes 
the  power  of  the  preacher,  cripple  the 
efficiency  and  retard  the  progress  of 
the  church.  It  is  not  by  philanthropic 
agencies  nor  the  creation  of  new  societies, 
but  by  the  "  foolishness  of  preaching," 
that  the  world  is  to  be  redeemed. 

Therefore,  brethren,  guard  your  min- 
ister with  all  diligence,  for  out  of  his 
heart  proceeds  the  word  of  life.  If  you 
convert  him  into  an  errand-boy  or  a  pack- 
horse,  you  not  only  kill  him,  but  you  check 
the  progress  of  the  kingdom.  If  you  per- 
mit him  to  fritter  away  his  time  on  or- 


W/io  Is  To  Blame  f  51 

ganizations,  and  squander  his  strength  in 
administration,  he  cannot  speak  to  you  on 
the  Lord's  Day  with  an  energy  that  will 
stir  you,  and  with  a  knowledge  that  will 
build  you  up.  There  is  nothing  more  pa- 
thetic in  the  religious  history  of  America 
than  the  cruel  way  in  which  ministers  are 
sacrificed  to  the  ignorance  and  thought- 
lessness of  Christians.  One  layman  by 
himself  is  not  cruel ;  but  five  hundred  or 
a  thousand  laymen,  when  banded  together 
in  a  Christian  church,  can  do  things  which 
a  savage  would  blush  at.  They  can  sacri- 
fice without  compunction  the  health  and 
growth  and  domestic  life  and  usefulness 
of  their  pastor,  and  finally  leave  him  a 
wreck.  Much  is  said  about  the  dead  line, 
and  clergymen  are  roundly  condemned  for 
reaching  it.  A  minister  must  inevitably 
reach  it,  and  early  too,  if  he  does  not  have 
sufficient  will-power  to  resist  with  dogged 
pertinacity  and  martyr-like  heroism  the 
encroachments  on  his  time  and  energy 
which  good-hearted  but  inconsiderate  peo- 


52     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

pie  are  sure  to  make.  Many  a  faithful 
servant  of  the  Lord  has  in  early  life,  in 
order  to  meet  the  voracious  demands  of 
his  parish,  cut  short  his  hours  for  study 
and  for  prayer,  and  then  been  subjected 
to  the  galling  humiliation  later  on  of 
hearing  from  the  lips  of  the  very  per- 
sons whose  foolishness  had  undone  him, 
the  damning  assertion,  "  He  is  a  very 
good  man,  but  he  does  not  hold  the 
people ! " 

Let  your  minister  preach.  When  he 
tells  you  what  hours  he  needs  for  study, 
let  him  have  them.  If  he  does  not  call 
so  frequently  as  his  predecessor,  say  noth- 
ing. Measure  him  not  by  the  number  of 
door-bells  he  rings,  but  by  the  impulse  he 
gives  the  community  toward  God.  When 
he  is  absent  from  some  occasion  which 
you  wished  might  have  been  graced  by 
his  presence,  do  not  complain  or  con- 
demn. When  he  declines  to  say  "yes" 
to  vour  every  invitation,  remember  that 
you  are  only  one  of  a  thousand  persons 


IV/io  Is  To  Blame  f  53 

who  have  a  claim  on  him,  and  that  min- 
isters have  rights  which  laymen  ought 
to  respect.  When  ministers  do  less  they 
will  do  better,  and  when  churches  demand 
less  they  will  receive  more. 


54     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 


VIII. 

Why  Time  Is  Needed, 

I  KNOW  how  a  layman  looks  at  it.  He 
thinks  that  a  minister  can  begin  Monday 
morning  to  write  his  sermons,  and  can 
write  straight  on  till  Saturday  night. 
With  a  clean  sweep  of  six  long  days  at 
his  disposal,  what  more  can  a  reasonable 
man  demand.^  But  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  according  to  God's  law  a  man 
must  drop  his  work  one  day  in  seven. 
The  clergyman  who  does  not  do  this  pays 
the  penalty  like  any  other  transgressor  of 
the  law.  Moreover,  few  clergymen  have 
more  than  their  mornings  in  their  study. 
The  afternoons  are  filled  with  parish 
duties,  and  the  evenings  with  social  func- 
tions and  religious  meetings.  Thus  the 
vast  week  dwindles  down  to  five  short 
mornings  in  which  two  sermons  must  be 


Why  Time  Is  Needed.  5  5 

prepared.  And  as  if  even  this  were  too 
much,  frequently  a  funeral  or  some  other 
imperative  call  steals  away  one  of  these 
five  precious   mornings. 

Within  these  narrow  hours  what  tre- 
mendous work  must  be  done  !  It  is  a 
popular  notion  that  the  preacher's  hardest 
work  is  the  writing  of  his  sermons.  His 
most  arduous  labor  is  preparing,  not  his 
sermons,  but  himself.  Any  one  can  write 
down  a  sermon  after  he  has  the  sermon 
in  him  ;  but  to  get  one's  soul  into  that 
mood  in  which  sermons  blossom,  to  lift 
one's  self  to  those  high  altitudes  at  which 
the  word  of  God  is  audible,  ah,  there's 
the  rub  !  What  study !  What  meditation  ! 
What  prayer  !  A  sermon  is  not  a  thing 
that  can  be  dashed  off  at  any  moment 
and  without  heart-strain.  A  sermon 
grows.  Growth  requires  time.  A  ser- 
mon eats  up  the  life-blood  of  a  man.  To 
keep  the  fountains  of  his  life  from  run- 
ning dry  is  the  minister's  most  critical 
problem.     He  must  be   an   indefatigable 


56     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

worker.  Intellectual  treasures  from  every 
quarter  must  be  swept  into  his  mind  by 
reading,  wide  and  constant.  He  must  be 
a  student.  He  must  dig  deep  in  the 
mines  of  thought,  and  wrestle  with  the 
problems  which  distress  the  age  and 
the  ages.  He  must  meditate.  He  must 
have  time  to  keep  still  that  great  thoughts 
may  take  shape  in  him,  that  opinions  may 
crystallize  into  convictions,  and  that  dim 
truths  may  become  clear.  He  must  pray. 
He  must  continue  long  in  prayer. 

No  man  can  pray  in  a  hurry,  or  medi- 
tate in  haste,  or  study  with  a  hundred 
duties  standing  at  the  door  and  shouting 
at  him.  But  the  modern  preacher  has 
little  time.  He  goes  through  the  week  on 
a  hop,  skip,  and  jump.  He  is  in  a  constant 
flurry  to  meet  his  next  engagement.  He 
is  a  Martha  busied  about  many  things. 
The  better  part  has  been  taken  from  him. 
A  thousand  odds  and  ends  of  parish  work 
keep  him  in  a  frenzy  of  activity,  which 
saps  the  springs  of  intellectual  energy  and 
spiritual  life. 


Why  Time  Is  Needed.  57 

Brethren,  we  have  now  reached  the  root 
of  one  of  the  great  problems  of  our  day. 
The  various  distressing  pulpit  phenomena, 
which  we  all  lament,  and  whose  correction 
seems  to  be  beyond  our  skill,  can  nearly 
all  be  traced,  I  think,  to  the  crowded  and 
feverish  life  which  a  modern  minister  is 
obliged  to  live. 

It  is  lack  of  time  which  drives  so  many 
preachers  to  palm  off  editorials  as  ser- 
mons. There  is  a  vast  difference  between 
an  editorial  and  a  sermon.  The  former  is 
an  opinion,  a  comment,  a  discussion  of 
a  problem.  It  may  be  written  without 
emotion,  and  oftentimes  in  haste.  The 
sermon,  like  a  poem,  is  a  creation  of 
the  spirit,  and  comes  into  existence  only 
through  an  experience  which  melts  and 
transfigures  the  heart.  Editorials  may  be 
written  in  the  street  ;  sermons  come  to 
the  soul  only  at  high  levels.  The  minister 
must,  like  Moses,  go  up  into  the  mountain 
alone. 

It  is  lack  of  time  which  is  cutting  pas- 


58     Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

torates  short.  Preaching  becomes  thin, 
and  laymen  rebel.  Preaching  is  thin  be- 
cause preachers  are  thin.  Preachers  are 
worn  thin  by  endless  activity.  A  man,  to 
keep  intellectually  robust  and  spiritually 
rich,  must  have  leisure  for  contemplation 
and  wide  study.  Pastorates  are  becoming 
short,  not  because  preachers  are  lazy,  but 
because  they  are  so  busy  in  doing  things 
that  they  preach  themselves  empty  in 
three  or  four  years.  Many  a  minister's 
lamp  goes  out  simply  because  he  has  no 
time  to  supply  himself  with  oil. 

It  is  lack  of  time  which  is  partly  re- 
sponsible for  the  increased  demand  for 
evangelists,  and  for  the  numerous  cheap 
devices  adopted  by  preachers  for  whee- 
dling men  into  church  attendance.  If 
preachers  do  not  have  time  to  read  great 
books  and  assimilate  great  ideas,  it  is  not 
surprising  they  should  fall  back  on  pic- 
tures and  choirs,  and  call  in  as  often  as 
possible  an  outsider  to  lighten  the  drudg- 
ery of  their  sermonic  work.    The  increased 


Why  Time  Is  Needed.  59 

dependence  on  travelling  preachers  is,  in 
my  judgment,  one  of  the  most  ominous 
and  deplorable  signs  of  the  times. 

And  how  shall  we  account  for  the  ab- 
sence of  that  fire  without  which  preach- 
ing is  vain  ?  A  sermon  is  nothing  unless 
touched  with  emotion.  Emotion  cannot 
be  manufactured.  It  is  the  result  of  med- 
itation. The  Psalmist  says,  "While  I 
mused,  the  fire  burned."  Without  mus- 
ing there  is  no  burning.  James  Russell 
Lowell,  in  one  of  his  letters,  says, 
"  My  brain  requires  a  long  brooding-time 
ere  it  can  hatch  anything.  As  soon  as 
the  life  comes  into  the  thing,  it  is  quick 
enough  in  chipping  the  shell."  From 
London  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  I  am 
piecemealed  here  with  so  many  things  to 
do  that  I  cannot  get  a  moment  to  brood 
over  anything  as  it  must  be  brooded  over 
if  it  is  to  have  wings.  It  is  as  if  a  sitting 
hen  should  have  to  mind  the  door-bell." 
That  is  the  experience  of  the  preacher. 
He    is   piecemealed.     He    is    the   victim 


6o     Q2iiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

of  the  door-bell.  He  cannot  hatch  his 
thoughts  fairly  out  as  he  goes  along. 
Little  opportunity  is  given  his  nature 
to  kindle  into  flame. 

If  preachers  are  to  speak  for  God  they 
must  be  given  time  to  find  out  what  God 
says.  The  words  of  John  the  Baptist 
rolled  out  upon  his  hearers  like  molten 
lava  because  he  had  brooded  so  long  ovei 
the  soul's  need  and  God's  will  that  when 
he  emerged  from  the  desert  there  was  a 
fire  burning  in  the  marrow  of  his  bones. 
Jesus  in  the  quiet  of  Nazareth  meditated 
and  mused  through  the  years  until  he  was 
caught  up  by  a  spirit  which  carried  him 
from  the  shop  to  the  cross.  No  wonder 
he  spoke  as  one  having  authority,  and 
that  men  wondered  at  the  words  of  grace 
which  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth.  And 
throughout  his  short  public  life  he  again 
and  again  turned  his  back  on  men  in 
order  to  be  alone. 


Vacation^  and  Why,  6l 


IX. 

Vacation,  and  Why. 

A  VACATION  for  a  minister  is  not  a 
luxury,  but  a  necessity.  Of  course  a  man 
may  preach  every  Sunday  for  years  ;  but 
if  a  man  is  to  preach  at  his  best,  he  must 
have  annual  periods  of  rest.  If  through 
mistaken  zeal  a  clergyman  declines  to 
take  a  vacation,  his  church  should  stoutly 
insist  on  his  obeying  the  laws  of  psychi- 
cal health.  If  through  carelessness  or 
ignorance  a  church  fails  to  provide  for 
an  annual  vacation,  the  minister  should 
take  it  anyhow.  No  servant  of  the  Lord 
should  ever  allow  himself  to  be  robbed  by 
any  company  of  men  of  the  conditions 
essential  to  largest  usefulness  and  power. 
A  vacation  is  as  necessary  for  the  rural 
clergyman  as  for  his  brother  in  the  city, 
but    for    different    reasons.     The    village 


62    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

deadens,  the  city  exhausts.  The  foe  of 
the  rural  minister  is  rust ;  the  enemy  of 
the  city  minister  is  mental  and  spiritual 
dissipation.  A  thousand  influences  play 
on  the  minister  in  the  city  to  keep  him 
alive.  He  is  in  danger  of  dying  of  excess 
of  life.  In  the  hamlet  the  minister  is 
himself  the  fountain  of  life.  He  is  the 
magnetic  battery  from  which  every  enter- 
prise must  be  charged.  His  mission  is 
to  quicken  and  arouse.  But  in  order  to 
stimulate  others,  one  must  himself  be 
stimulated.  Every  village  pastor  should, 
if  possible,  spend  at  least  one  month  of 
every  year  away  from  his  parish.  His 
people  ought  to  insist  on  his  doing  this. 
He  should  make  an  annual  pilgrimage 
to  some  intellectual  centre.  He  will 
bring  back  in  new  impressions  and  fresh 
ideas  more  than  enough  to  compensate 
the  community  a  hundredfold  for  all  that 
his  vacation  has  cost.  Who  can  walk 
through  the  drowsy  streets  of  the  ordi- 
nary village  without  appreciating  the  mag- 


Vacation,  and  Why.  63 

nitude  of  the  task  laid  upon  the  country 
parson  of  keeping  enthusiasm  intense  and 
thought-horizons  wide  ? 

The  city  pastor  must  have  a  vacation 
to  keep  his  nature  from  wearing  thin. 
The  endless  round  of  engagements,  the 
enormous  correspondence,  the  awful  bur- 
den of  poverty  and  woe,  the  constant 
drain  on  the  centres  of  vitality,  render 
unceasing  work  dangerous,  if  not  fatal. 
Even  if  a  man  were  physically  strong 
enough  to  stride  through  the  months 
without  a  pause,  the  nature  of  the  mind  is 
such  that  unceasing  sermonic  activity  is 
fatal  to  highest  pulpit  power.  A  preacher 
is  a  teacher.  A  teacher's  worth  is  meas- 
ured by  his  ability  to  inspire.  Inspiration 
is  conditioned  on  vitality  and  vigor  of  the 
creative  faculties  of  the  mind.  A  preacher 
must  create  impulse.  A  jaded  preacher  is 
no  preacher  at  all.  The  man  in  the  pulpit 
must  give  forth  life.  The  more  life  he 
radiates,  the  greater  his  service  to  the 
world.     Truth  must  in  him  become  incar- 


64     Qtdet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

nate,  and  burn  with  a  flame  which  fasci- 
nates and  transforms.  No  man  can  teach 
even  language  or  science  with  highest 
efficiency  straight  through  all  the  months 
of  the  year.  Universities  make  no  mis- 
take in  granting  professors  long  annual 
vacations,  and  in  giving  them  one  com- 
plete year  in  seven.  Without  opportuni- 
ties to  recuperate  and  blossom,  the  teacher 
degenerates  into  a  hack,  a  machine,  a 
pedant.  Much  more  necessary  is  periodic 
rest  to  the  man  who  deals,  not  simply 
with  the  intellect,  but  with  the  affections 
and  the  will.  To  cleanse  and  stir  life  at 
its  fountain-head  requires  a  man  intensely 
human,  and  in  every  fibre  of  his  soul  alive. 
Human  nerves  are  not  steel.  If  always 
stretched,  they  deteriorate  or  break.  A 
preacher  must  be  a  thinker.  He  ought 
to  think  closely,  consecutively,  accurately. 
Only  a  fresh  mind  thinks  truly.  A  fagged 
mind  cannot  be  trusted  A  wearied 
preacher  tires  his  congregation.  He  does 
worse,  —  he  misleads.     He  does  not  see 


Vacation^  and  Why.  65 

things  in  their  right  relations,  and  cannot 
present  them  in  their  true  proportions.  A 
man  may  exhort  or  retail  anecdotes  ever- 
lastingly, but  that  is  not  preaching. 

More  than  the  preacher's  intellect  is 
in  danger.  His  spiritual  life  is  at  stake. 
It  is  possible  to  work  for  God  until  all 
sense  of  God  is  lost.  An  overworked 
preacher  finds  himself  asking  with  Pon- 
tius Pilate,  "  What  is  truth  .? "  The 
eclipses  of  faith,  alarmingly  frequent  in 
the  ministry,  are  largely  the  result  of 
overwork.  A  clergyman  must  get  away 
occasionally  from  the  Bible.  He  must 
touch  God  in  the  sea  and  sky  and  woods. 
He  must  listen,  not  always  to  Hebrew 
prophets,  but  sometimes  to  American 
frogs  and  katydids  and  birds.  He  must 
drop  the  idea  of  saving  others,  and  be 
still  that  God  may  save  him.  In  the 
months  of  work  he  must  be  self-assertive. 
His  aim  is  to  impress  men.  He  hurls 
himself  upon  them.  He  looks  for  results. 
This  mood,  if  never  broken,  becomes  de- 


66    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

structive  of  the  higher  life  of  the  soul. 
There  is  nothing  more  pathetic  than 
the  degeneration  which  often  goes  on 
in  the  character  of  men  ordained  to 
preach  the  gospel.  As  the  years  go  on 
the  temper  loses  its  sweetness,  the  dis- 
position becomes  autocratic  or  peevish, 
the  mind  is  sicklied  o'er  with  a  morbid 
cast  of  thought,  the  very  structure  of 
the  soul  seems  in  some  cases  to  crumble 
into  hopeless  decay.  Many  a  minister, 
whose  head  is  full  of  foolish  fears  and 
whose  sermons  are  weighted  with  morbid 
fancies,  would  be  born  again  if  he  could 
spend  a  few  months  under  the  trees  or 
on  the  sea.  Anything  which  will  widen 
the  minister's  outlook,  elevate  his  ideals, 
cool  the  fever  of  his  nerves,  quicken  his 
impulses,  and  restore  the  balance  of  his 
judgment,  ought  to  be  sought  after  by  a 
congregation  as  rubies  and  fine  gold. 

Indeed,  it  is  for  the  sake  of  the  people 
rather  than  for  the  sake  of  the  preacher 
that  a  vacation  is  necessary.     A  church 


Vacatio7t,  and  Why,  67 

whose  pastor  takes  no  vacation  is  of  all 
churches  most  miserable.  It  does  a 
church  good  to  escape  occasionally  from 
the  man  who  is  its  head.  It  is  not  best 
for  a  congregation  to  listen  continuously 
to  the  same  man,  no  matter  how  wise  or 
good  he  may  be.  It  is  of  vast  advantage 
for  laymen  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  men 
who  see  truth  at  different  angles,  and 
who  enter  hearts  by  different  avenues  of 
approach.  A  voice,  no  matter  how  sweet, 
loses  its  edge  if  heard  too  often,  and 
fails  to  reach  the  heart  as  a  voice  does 
whose  accent  is  fresh,  and  whose  intona- 
tions have  in  them  the  charm  of  un- 
familiar music.  A  church  is  roused  to 
new  intellectual  alertness,  and  lifted  to 
higher  levels  of  spiritual  vision,  by  listen- 
ing now  and  then  to  voices  that  are 
new.  For  his  people's  sake,  as  well  as 
for  his  own,  no  minister  can  afford  to 
stand  in  his  pulpit  every  Sunday  in  the 
year. 


68    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 


X. 

Objections  to  Vacations, 

I  THINK  one  of  you  remarked  a  little 
while  ago  that  the  devil  never  takes  a 
vacation.  The  tone  in  which  you  said 
it  compelled  an  inference  and  outlined 
an  argument.  But  the  argument  rests 
on  two  erroneous  suppositions.  It  is  not 
true,  as  is  sometimes  assumed,  that  a 
clergyman  is  under  obligation  to  follow 
the  example  of  the  devil,  nor  is  it  true 
that  a  community  is  completely  at  the 
mercy  of  his  Satanic  majesty  the  moment 
the  minister  goes  out  of  town.  If  the 
devil  can  in  one  month  undo  all  the  work 
which  the  minister  has  done  in  eleven 
months,  the  loss  is  not  so  great  as  you 
imagine.  Such  work  as  that  ought  to 
be  done  over  again.  It  is  only  when 
men  build  of  hay  and  stubble  that  their 


Objections  to  Vacations.  69 

work  goes  up  in  smoke  under  an  August 
sun.  Church-members  who  live  and  work 
like  Christians  only  when  the  minister's 
eye  is  on  them  are  not  sufficiently  Chris- 
tianized to  stand  the  test  of  the  judg- 
ment day.  The  minister  is  not  the 
church,  and  it  is  foolish  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  if  he  is  absent  the  church 
of  God  practically  ceases  to  be. 

You  say  that  many  churches  are  too 
poor  to  afford  the  luxury  of  a  summer 
supply.  What  of  it  >  A  summer  supply 
can  be  dispensed  with.  There  are  forms 
of  church  service  other  than  the  preach- 
ing service.  A  praise  or  prayer  or  Bible 
study  or  conference  service,  or  a  service 
copied  after  the  model  set  us  by  the 
apostolic  church,  in  which  each  Christian 
had  a  Psalm  or  a  doctrine  or  a  tongue 
or  a  revelation  or  an  interpretation,  is  as 
legitimate  and  Scriptural  as  a  service  in 
which  the  minister  does  it  all.  If  you 
feel  your  church  cannot  survive  a  month 
without  a  weekly  sermon,  then  why  not 


70    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

have  the  four  best  readers  in  the  church 
read  in  turn  sermons  from  four  mod- 
ern pulpit  princes  ?  Such  an  innovation 
might  prove  as  refreshing  as  the  dew  of 
Hermon. 

Ah,  I  have  not  struck  the  difficulty 
yet  ?  It  is  the  pastoral  work  that  can- 
not be  neglected.  Of  course  not!  But 
it  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  only  a 
clergyman  can  do  pastoral  work.  Every 
Christian  is  by  divine  appointment  a  pas- 
tor, and  it  is  of  the  essence  of  the  Chris- 
tian life  to  shepherd  some  of  the  Master's 
sheep.  Laymen  when  living  up  to  their 
privileges  are  pastors,  and  are  abundantly 
able  to  pray  with  the  sick,  assist  the 
poor,  advise  the  perplexed,  and  comfort 
the  dying.  If  the  church  has  no  mem- 
bers except  the  pastor  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  do  this,  it  is  high  time  for  that 
church  to  put  on  sackcloth,  and  confess 
that  it  is  wretched  and  miserable,  and 
poor  and  blind  and  naked.  But  you  say 
sick   people  prefer   the  pastor.     Suppose 


Objections  to  Vacations.  yi 

they  do.  Some  sick  people  have  a  habit 
of  preferring  a  lot  of  things  which  are 
unreasonable,  and  which  it  is  not  best  for 
them  to  have.  Persons  when  sick  have 
no  more  right  to  be  selfish  than  other 
folks,  and  should  learn  the  high  art  of 
sacrificing  their  preferences  and  likings  to 
the  welfare  of  others. 

But  how  about  the  dying  and  the  dead  ? 
Surely  a  clergyman  is  indispensable  in 
such  cases !  Not  at  all.  A  Roman 
Catholic  can  go  into  heaven  without 
extreme  unction,  and  there  is  no  reason 
why  a  Protestant  should  not  die  in  peace 
without  a  pastor's  prayers  in  his  ears. 
Moreover,  a  clergyman  is  not  indispen- 
sable at  a  funeral.  No  clergyman  offici- 
ated at  a  funeral  in  New  England  for 
more  than  a  half  century  after  the  land- 
ing of  the  Pilgrims.  Neither  the  living 
nor  the  dead,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained, 
suffered  from  this  singular  procedure. 
The  clerical  custom  of  conducting  funeral 
services   is   an   innovation.     Jesus   never 


'J2     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

did  it.  He  did  not  lay  it  down  as  one  of 
the  duties  of  his  apostles.  Neither  the 
twelve  nor  the  seventy  were  instructed 
to  bury  the  dead.  If  Paul  had  ever  been 
twitted  on  being  out  of  town  when  some 
Christian  saint  needed  burial,  he  would 
no  doubt  have  replied  with  swift  alacrity, 
"  Christ  sent  me  not  to  attend  funerals, 
but  to  preach  the  gospel  ! "  If  ministers 
of  the  Lord  need  a  vacation,  surely  dead 
people  must  not  be  allowed  to  block  up 
the  way.  That  church  is  poor  indeed  in 
which  there  is  no  layman  worthy  and 
able  to  offer  a  prayer  above  a  casket,  or 
repeat  "  dust  to  dust "  beside  a  grave. 

A  minister's  vacation  should  not  be 
less  than  a  month.  A  two  weeks'  vaca- 
tion is  no  vacation  at  all.  A  clergyman 
cannot  drop  his  work  as  a  clerk  drops 
his  yardstick  or  a  bookkeeper  his  ledger. 
The  minister's  burden  is  spiritual.  It  is 
not  easily  shaken  off.  It  wears  down  into 
the  fibre  of  the  soul.  Deliverance  comes 
only  in  time.     At  least  a  week  is  needed 


Objections  to  Vacations.  73 

for  working  one's  self  out  of  the  sermonic 
mood ;  and  if  at  the  end  of  this  first  week 
the  preacher  must  begin  to  work  out 
new  sermons  for  the  coming  Sunday,  his 
vacation  practically  amounts  to  nothing. 

In  many  cases  one  month's  rest  in 
twelve  is  not  sufficient.  The  time  de- 
manded depends  on  the  man  and  the 
parish.  Tough  and  callous  men,  who 
radiate  little  energy,  require  less  vacation 
than  men  of  sensitive  nature  and  vast 
genius  for  expending  life.  It  is  cruel  to 
expect  equal  things  of  all  men.  Dray 
horses  and  race  horses  demand  different 
treatment.  One  man  will  burn  up  more 
life  in  one  sermon  than  another  will  burn 
up  in  twenty.  To  give  the  first  man  no 
more  vacation  than  the  second  is  both 
foolish  and  wicked.  The  coarse-fibred 
and  lethargic  man  may  boast  that  he 
never  takes  a  vacation  ;  but  if  he  were 
more  finely  conscientious  in  his  work, 
and  more  tremblingly  alive  in  body,  mind, 
and  spirit,  he  would  suffer  the  same  ex- 


74     Qtdet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

haustion  which  overtakes  his  fine-grained 
and  passionate  brother.  And  parishes 
differ  in  their  demands.  When  paro- 
chial duties  are  multitudinous  and  pulpit 
work  is  unusually  exacting,  a  vacation 
of  two  or  even  three  months  is  not 
unreasonably  long.  Ministers  with  ex- 
tended vacations  do  not  spend  all  their 
days  in  idleness.  In  the  vacation  months 
they  store  up  food  with  which  to  feed 
their  people  through  another  year.  By 
travel  or  by  study  and  long,  uninter- 
rupted meditation  they  freshen  the  spirit 
and  enlarge  the  heart  that  those  whom 
the  Lord  has  given  them  may  enjoy  a 
richer  ministry  at  their  hands.  Study 
your  minister,  brethren,  his  tempera- 
ment and  constitution.  Measure  his 
strength,  and  the  tax  which  his  work 
levies  on  it,  and  then,  paying  no  atten- 
tion to  what  other  churches  are  doing, 
give  him  all  the  time  for  rest  he  needs. 


Money,  75 


XL 

Money* 

Money  is  my  theme.  It  is  a  delicate 
subject  —  for  a  minister.  Other  men 
may  talk  about  it,  but  not  a  minister. 
If  he  talks  about  it  he  is  mercenary  and 
worldly  minded !  But  a  minister  thinks 
about  money.  He  cannot  help  it.  God 
has  made  money  a  part  of  his  world.  He 
has  ordained  that  money  shall  play  a 
prominent  part  in  all  human  life.  Clergy- 
men, like  other  mortals,  cannot  live  with- 
out it.  It  is  not  disgraceful,  therefore, 
for  a  minister  to  earn  money  and  spend 
it  and  talk  about  it.  What  God  has  made 
necessary  let  no  man  call  unclean.  If 
ministers  had  discussed  church  finance 
more  frankly,  laymen  would  now  under- 
stand it  better  than  they  do.  Subjects 
too  delicate  for  discussion  gather  round 


'j6    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

them  a  mass  of  spontaneous  and  erro- 
neous opinion.  Erroneous  opinion  con- 
cerning matters  of  moment  cripples  the 
church,  and  blocks  the  progress  of  the 
kingdom. 

The  salary  of  the  minister  is  not  an 
alms,  but  a  debt.  This  is  fundamental. 
Unless  a  church  grasps  this,  all  its  after 
life  is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries. 
A  minister  is  not  a  beneficiary  or  a 
pauper  or  a  beggar.  He  is  a  laborer, 
and  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire. 
To  give  him  donations  and  discounts  is 
to  demoralize  the  man  and  degrade  his 
office.  His  salary  is  a  debt ;  and,  like  all 
debts,  it  should  be  paid  fully,  promptly, 
ungrudgingly.  A  church  which  holds 
back  a  dollar  of  its  pastor's  salary  is  a 
rogue.  If  there  were  a  penitentiary  for 
roguish  churches  it  would  be  full.  An 
honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God  ; 
a  dishonest  church  is  the  crowning  work 
of  the  devil.  A  minister  does  wrong  in 
allowing  a  church  to  impose  upon   him. 


Money,  77 

A  church  which  cheats  must  be  disci- 
plined. If,  after  repeated  offences,  it  re- 
fuses to  repent,  he  should  shake  off  the 
dust  of  his  feet  against  it. 

It  is  well  to  pay  the  minister  liberally. 
A  church  cannot  afford  to  do  otherwise. 
If  church  officials  drive  a  hard  bargain, 
and  secure  a  man  at  the  lowest  possible 
figure,  they  lose  more  than  they  gain. 
A  niggardly  financial  policy  will  wreck 
any  church.  The  question  should  be, 
not  how  little  shall  we  pay,  but  how 
much .?  "  There  is  that  withholdeth  more 
than  is  meet,  but  it  tendeth  to  pov- 
erty." Deacons  feel  mean  after  they 
have  higgled  a  week  about  the  pastor's 
salary.  It  takes  the  heart  out  of  a 
preacher  to  feel  that  he  is  preaching  to 
skinflints. 

The  average  minister  is  not  paid  gene- 
rously. Unless  a  man  is  sought  after  by 
several  churches,  his  salary  is  almost  sure 
to  be  small.  If  sought  after,  his  salary 
goes  up,  not  because  of  Christian  liberal- 


78    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

ity,  but  because  of  ecclesiastical  competi- 
tion. The  average  clergyman  is  under- 
paid. Often  a  faithful  man  works  hard 
for  years  for  small  pay,  and  men  of  large 
income  in  the  congregation  allow  him  to 
do  it.  But  when  a  call  comes  from  some 
other  church,  then  the  brethren  come  to 
their  senses,  and  offer  to  do  what  they 
should  have  done  years  before.  Such 
action  is  contemptible.  It  should  be 
resented  by  every  minister  who  has  self- 
respect.  No  church  should  offer  to 
advance  its  minister's  salary  when  he  is 
considering  a  call  to  another  parish.  Such 
an  offer  is  a  bribe.  If  from  a  church 
which  has  long  imposed  upon  its  minister 
because  he  was  too  modest  to  protest,  it 
comes  too  late ;  if  from  a  sudden  spasm 
of  enthusiasm  the  church  is  stirred  to 
offer  more  than  its  resources  warrant,  its 
folly  should  be  resisted.  A  minister's 
heart  is  made  glad  by  a  people  who  are 
generous,  not  by  a  people  who  are  shrewd 
bidders  at   an  auction.     A  church  at  all 


Money,  79 

times  should  pay  its  pastor  up  to  the  level 
of  its  ability. 

But  the  chief  cause  of  inadequate  sal- 
aries is  not  depravity,  but  lack  of  consid- 
eration. Laymen  are  too  busy  to  put 
themselves  in  their  pastor's  place,  and 
reason  out  his  needs.  There  is  nothing 
more  amusing  than  the  way  the  average 
layman  reasons  out  a  minister's  *' neces- 
sary expenses,"  and  calculates  the  amount 
he  can  save.  The  man  in  the  moon  could 
probably  calculate  better.  A  mechanic 
lives  on  a  certain  amount  a  week.  Why 
should  not  the  minister  do  the  same  1 
Because  he  is  a  public  character  and  the 
mechanic  is  not.  A  minister  must  live  in 
public.  He  owes  duties  to  the  community 
which  it  costs  money  to  discharge.  He 
cannot  live  where  he  pleases,  or  dress  as 
pleases,  or  order  his  life  as  he  pleases. 
His  position  necessitates  expenses  which 
other  men  can  escape.  His  grocer's  bill 
—  if  he  is  hospitable  —  is  double  that  of 
the  average  man  in  his  congregation.     To 


8o    Qtdet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

preach  well  he  must  eat  more  than  beef- 
steak. He  must  eat  books  straight  through 
the  year.  He  should  be  allowed  at  least 
one  hundred  dollars  a  year  for  his  library. 
Thrice  or  quadruple  that  amount  is  not 
extravagant.  To  expect  a  man  to  preach 
fresh  and  juicy  sermons  while  withhold- 
ing from  him  nutritious  mental  food  is 
cruel.  A  lean  library  means  a  scrawny 
preacher. 

A  vacation  costs  money.  Many  a 
clergyman  stays  at  home  the  year  round 
because  he  cannot  afford  to  take  his 
family  out  of  town ;  or,  if  he  goes,  he 
preaches  in  other  pulpits  every  Sunday 
to  pay  his  travelling  and  hotel  expenses. 
This  is  not  right.  There  are  a  few  men, 
to  be  sure,  who  will  preach  every  Sun- 
day during  their  vacation,  no  matter  what 
their  salary  may  be ;  but  how  is  it  with 
your  minister }  Why  does  he  preach 
through  his  vacations.^ 

You  cannot  know  all  the  channels 
through  which  a  clergyman's  salary  trie- 


Money,  8i 

kles  away.  He  owes  duties  to  his  denom- 
ination ;  and  every  council,  conference, 
or  convention  he  attends  makes  demands 
upon  his  purse.  You  cannot  know  the 
cases  of  need  he  meets  continually,  many 
of  which  it  is  impossible  to  escape.  Peo- 
ple whose  names  you  would  never  guess 
come  to  him  for  assistance.  In  fixing 
the  minister's  salary,  a  generous  sum 
should  be  added  for  the  express  purpose 
of  meeting  just  such  demands.  To  ex- 
pose a  man  to  incessant  calls  for  help, 
and  furnish  him  no  funds  with  which  to 
meet  these  calls,  is  an  act  of  short-sighted- 
ness as  frequent  as  it  is  lamentable. 
Any  man  worthy  to  be  your  pastor  may 
be  trusted  with  a  salary  liberal  enough  to 
enable  him  to  be  generous  toward  the 
jieedy  individuals  and  deserving  causes 
which  have  a  reasonable  claim  upon  him 
as  your  representative  and  head.  In 
short,  the  necessary  expenses  of  a  clergy- 
man are  unique.  His  table,  his  corre- 
spondence,   his    library,    his    travels,    his 


82    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

benevolence,  all  eat  up  money  with  in- 
credible swiftness ;  and  this  should  be 
borne  in  mind  when  the  church  discusses 
the    question,    **  What    salary    shall    we 

pay?" 


Ministerial  Liberty,  Zi 


XII. 

Ministerial  Liberty. 

How  to  secure  it  is  an  age-long  prob- 
lem. Arduous  efforts  have  been  made  to 
gain  it,  but  success  has  been  only  partial. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  made 
the  clergy  independent  of  the  laity,  but 
this  has  not  set  the  clergy  free.  When 
men  are  bound  together  in  a  system  in 
which  they  rise  one  above  another,  rank 
on  rank,  opportunity  is  furnished  the  men 
above  to  lord  it  over  the  men  below. 
The  Catholic  priest  may  pity  the  Protes- 
tant minister  because  the  latter  is  at  the 
mercy  of  his  fastidious  and  fickle  parish- 
ioners, but  to  be  dependent  on  a  congre- 
gation for  daily  bread  is  not  a  whit  more 
demoralizing  than  to  be  dependent  for 
ecclesiastical  preferment  on  one's  eccle- 
siastical superiors.     As  a  device  for  gag- 


84     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

ging  men,  the  hierarchy  has  proved  fatally 
effective. 

The  Anglican  Church,  to  escape  the 
tyranny  of  the  pope,  has  lodged  final 
authority  in  the  state.  This  is  a  sur- 
render of  the  Roman  position,  and  gives 
supreme  power  to  laymen.  But  it  does 
not  solve  the  problem.  How  may  clergy- 
men be  free.-*  Monarchs  and  prime  min- 
isters are  no  less  formidable  than  popes 
and  cardinals,  and  every  state  church  pre- 
sents to  its  clergy  the  temptation  of  shap- 
ing their  message  to  please  the  men  who 
have  political  power.  In  America  our 
Protestant  churches,  on  the  whole,  vest 
authority  in  the  people.  Majorities,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  rule  in  church  as  well 
as  in  state.  The  consequence  is,  that  our 
churches  are  exposed  to  all  the  dangers 
and  maladies  which  are  inseparable  from 
democracy. 

For  the  people  may  be  as  tyrannical 
as  despots  and  hierarchies.  They  can 
degrade  the  clergyman  to  a  puppet  or  a 


Ministerial  Liberty.  85 

parrot.  They  often  do.  They  can  wreck 
a  church  whose  pastor  discredits  their 
opinions,  or  runs  counter  to  their  preju- 
dices. Many  a  man  has  been  ousted  from 
his  pulpit  simply  because  he  dared  to 
speak  the  truth. 

How  to  keep  the  pulpit  independent  is 
one  of  our  greatest  problems.  It  is  morQ 
than  a  church  problem.  It  is  a  question 
in  which  every  citizen  of  our  republic  has 
a  vital  interest.  It  is  essential  to  the  life 
of  a  republic  that  it  have  in  it  a  body  of 
public  men  free  to  speak  their  deepest 
convictions  without  fear  or  favor.  We 
need  leaders  who  are  absolutely  untram- 
melled. A  large  part  of  the  press  cannot 
be  relied  on.  The  ledger  dictates  its  poL 
icy.  It  echoes  the  opinions  of  the  street. 
It  cares  nothing  for  moral  leadership, 
and  everything  for  immense  circulation. 
Many  editors  are  not  free  men.  Neither 
are  many  of  our  political  leaders.  The 
exigencies  of  political  warfare  render  them 
diplomatic,  and  compel  them  to  tone  down 


S6     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

their  utterances.  They  dare  not  attack 
evils  which  ought  to  be  annihilated,  or 
advocate  policies  which  ought  to  be  en- 
throned. Even  college  presidents  and  pro- 
fessors are  liable  to  be  called  to  account 
by  frightened  trustees  for  the  utterance 
of  opinions  which  cut  across  the  grain 
of  popular  conviction.  In  such  a  land 
and  time  it  is  of  sovereign  importance 
that  the  pulpit  should  be  without  a  fetter. 
Its  message  should  be  free  from  every 
taint  of  private  interest,  and  from  every 
trace  of  external  constraint.  Nothing 
cuts  the  ground  from  under  a  minister's 
feet  like  the  suspicion  that  he  is  saying, 
not  what  he  thinks,  but  what  his  hearers 
expect  him  to  say.  The  church  can  have 
no  influence  over  people  who  believe  that 
clergymen  are  the  hired  exponents  of  the 
views  of  the  men  who  rent  the  pews. 
The  fact  that  so  many  clergymen  in  sla- 
very days  apologized  for  slavery,  or  winked 
at  it,  has  done  more  to  bring  organized 
Christianity  in  this  country  into  disrepute 


Ministerial  Liberty.  S^ 

than   all   the   infidel   publications   of   the 
century. 

In  wide  circles  of  our  people  the  con- 
viction is  deeply  rooted  that  ministers  are 
the  slaves  of  their  congregations,  repeat- 
ing a  story  put  into  their  mouth,  afraid  to 
strike  established  wrongs,  or  to  pass  judg- 
ment on  perfumed  sins.  And  that  such 
pulpit  cowards  actually  exist  cannot  be 
denied.  The  pressure  has  been  too  great, 
and  many  an  unhappy  man  has  fallen. 

And  what  shall  be  done  about  it .?  Some 
say  give  us  churches  generously  endowed 
by  the  gifts  of  men  who  are  in  their 
graves,  thus  making  ministers  indepen- 
dent of  the  people  to  whom  they  preach. 
The  suggestion  is  plausible,  but  hardly 
wise.  The  only  adequate  relief  —  so  it 
seems  to  me  —  is  to  be  found  in  recon- 
structed manhood.  Not  in  dead  men  must 
we  seek  salvation,  but  in  men  who  are 
alive.  The  cowards  must  be  driven  from 
the  pulpits.  Laymen  should  see  that  this 
is  done.     A  man  too  timid  to  oppose  any- 


88     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

thing  but  ancient  evils,  or  condemn  any- 
thing but  distant  sins,  is  too  timid  to  be 
a  herald  of  the  Lord.  There  should  be 
a  healthy  sentiment  generated  in  all  our 
churches,  making  it  easier  for  ministers 
to  speak  boldly,  and  more  disgraceful  for 
them  to  be  craven.  The  preacher  should 
be  encouraged  to  speak  out  his  deepest 
thought.  Lynx-eyed  critics,  watching  for 
a  chance  to  pounce  down  upon  him  for 
a  mis-step  in  the  statement  of  a  doctrine, 
should  be  converted  or  excommunicated. 
Laymen  should  be  large-minded,  chari- 
table, and  fair.  They  should  not  expect 
the  pulpit  to  reproduce  their  own  ideas, 
and  confirm  them  in  their  favorite  notions. 
Oh,  for  a  layman — who  has  seen  him.!*  — 
large  enough  to  say  to  his  minister  at  the 
close  of  a  sermon  full  of  teaching  which 
he  cannot  accept,  "  I  cannot  agree  with 
you  now,  but  I  thank  you  for  your  sermon. 
It  has  done  me  good,  for  it  has  made  me 
think."  For  a  layman  to  cut  down  his 
contribution   to   the   church   because  the 


Ministerial  Liberty.  89 

minister  has  expressed  an  idea  to  which 
he  is  unable  to  assent  is  the  act  of  a  man 
who  would  bribe  a  judge  —  if  he  dared  — 
to  decide  in  his  favor  a  case  in  the  courts. 
But  there  is  no  excuse  for  cowardly- 
ministers.  If  laymen  attempt  to  intimi- 
date, they,  like  the  devil,  should  be  re- 
sisted. Better  lose  one's  pulpit  than 
one's  honor.  The  preacher  must  do  his 
duty,  no  matter  if  it  cuts  his  salary  in  two. 
If  he  is  content  to  mouth  the  safe  opinions 
of  the  ruling  set  in  his  congregation,  he  is 
not  a  prophet,  but  a  toady.  If  he  is  a 
puppet,  manipulated  by  a  few  rich  men 
who  contribute  generously  toward  church 
expenses,  he  deserves  the  contempt  of 
men,  and  is  sure  of  the  condemnation  of 
God.  No  mortal  on  earth  is  so  despicable 
as  a  pulpit  coward.  And  the  man  who 
stands  next  to  him  in  the  roll  of  dishonor 
is  a  pious  despot  in  the  pew. 


90     Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 


XIII. 

Liberty  Defined, 

No,  that  is  not  what  I  meant.  Liberty 
does  not  mean  license.  A  minister's  free- 
dom ends  where  the  rights  of  his  congre- 
gation begin.  He  has  no  right  to  say 
everything  in  the  pulpit  that  chances  to 
pop  into  his  head.  It  is  not  his  province 
to  discuss  political  parties  and  measures, 
and  harangue  people  on  questions  of 
political  economy  and  physical  science. 
He  is  a  teacher  of  religion ;  and  if  he  be- 
gins to  manifest  a  sort  of  omniscience 
which  compels  him  to  expound  every 
species  of  knowledge,  he  is  unquestion- 
ably insane,  and  should  be  promptly  dis- 
missed. 

Nor  should  he  be  allowed  to  preach 
even  the  text  of  the  New  Testament  if  his 
spirit  is  spiteful  and  bitter.     A  preacher 


Liberty  Defined.  91 

is  ordained  to  preach  Christ,  and  no  man 
preaches  Christ  who  is  not  dominated  by 
the  spirit  of  love.  A  sermon  is  full  of 
Christ  if  it  is  full  of  love,  though  the 
name  of  Christ  is  never  mentioned  in  it  ; 
and  a  sermon,  if  captious  and  hateful,  is 
of  the  devil,  even  though  the  name  of 
Jesus  opens  and  closes  every  paragraph. 
Laymen  have  a  right  to  rebel  if  their 
minister  is  not  willing  to  speak  the  truth 
in  love. 

Nor  is  a  clergyman  at  liberty  to  preach 
interpretations  of  Scripture  which  over- 
throw the  conceptions  of  truth  for  which 
his  pulpit  stands  in  the  community. 
There  seems  to  be  lamentable  confusion 
at  this  point.  Every  now  and  then  a 
clergyman  appears  who  feels  it  to  be  his 
inalienable  right  to  preach  anything  he 
pleases  in  any  pulpit  he  is  able  to  get 
into.  If  checked  in  his  course  he  at  once 
poses  as  a  martyr  ;  and  the  world  —  which 
has  a  strange  fondness  for  martyrs  — 
rends  its  raiment,  and  throws  dust  on  its 


92      Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

head,  and  pours  forth  its  stock  denun- 
ciations of  the  ineradicable  bigotry  and 
inexpressible  depravity  of  the  Christian 
church.  All  of  which  is  exceedingly 
funny,   and  also   pathetic. 

Now,  the  fact  is  that  a  man  of  ordinary 
discernment  and  honesty  will  not  attempt 
to  become  the  pastor  of  a  church  whose 
fundamental  doctrines  he  doubts  or  de- 
nies. To  do  so  is  impudence,  if  not  some- 
thing worse,  and  deserves  the  condemna- 
tion both  of  sinners  and  saints.  What 
right  has  a  Roman  Catholic  to  preach  in 
a  Protestant  pulpit }  and  why  should  a 
Unitarian  desire  to  smuggle  himself  into 
a  Trinitarian  pastorate  }  The  chasm  be- 
tween Romanism  and  Protestantism  is 
deep  and  wide,  and  so  also  is  the  chasm 
between  Trinitarianism  and  Unitarianism  ; 
and  nothing  is  gained  by  attempting 
to  conceal  those  chasms.  A  man  is  at 
liberty  to  make  his  home  in  any  branch 
of  the  Christian  church  whose  creed  his 
mind  can  accept  and  his  heart  rejoice  in, 


Liberty  Defined.  93 

but  to  steal  as  a  teacher  into  a  company 
of  Christians  whose  basal  tenets  he  dis- 
cards is  the  act  of  a  thief  and  a  robber. 
To  cast  such  a  man  out  of  the  place 
which  he  has  usurped  is  not  bigotry  or 
tyranny,  but  beautiful  and  necessary  jus- 
tice. There  is  the  widest  liberty  of  reli- 
gious thought  in  America ;  and,  with  our 
multiplicity  of  denominations,  there  is  no 
reason  why  any  clergyman  earnestly  desi- 
rous of  delivering  a  message  should  fail  to 
find  a  congregation  willing  to  grant  him 
all  the  latitude  his  soul  may  desire.  It 
is  no  infringement  of  a  man's  liberty  to 
insist  that  he  stay  where  he  belongs. 

But  in  many  churches  there  are  petty 
tyrannies  which  ought  to  be  abolished. 
The  pastor  of  a  church  is  by  divine  right 
a  leader.  As  its  executive  head  he  is 
held  responsible  for  the  successful  admin- 
istration of  its  affairs.  A  man  who  is 
held  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  an 
enterprise  must  be  granted  large  liberty 
in  the  prosecution  of  his  work.     A  gen- 


94     Qidet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

eral  cannot  be  condemned  for  defeat  if 
he  is  not  permitted  to  lay  out  his  cam- 
paign. A  business  manager  who  is  not 
allowed  to  manage  is  not  responsible  for 
the  bankruptcy  which  overtakes  his  house. 
A  guide  who  is  obliged  to  follow  is  no 
guide  at  all.  A  minister  is  not  answer- 
able for  the  outcome  of  his  ministry  if 
he  is  thwarted  at  every  step  by  men  who 
will  not  approve  his  methods  or  adopt 
and  work  out   his  suggestions. 

Many  a  minister  is  robbed  of  power  by 
the  unreasonable  demands  of  his  people. 
They  demand  church  prosperity,  and 
promptly  vote  down  every  measure  which 
is  likely  to  produce  it.  They  lie  down  in 
the  ruts  of  outgrown  methods,  and  then 
berate  the  poor  man  who  in  vain  urges 
them  to  move  forward.  They  weight  him 
down  with  the  armor  of  his  predecessor, 
and  then  stand  amazed  because  he  cuts  a 
poor  figure  in  fighting  the  foe.  Every 
man  must  work  in  his  own  way,  and  so 
far  as  possible  the  church  should  endeavor 


Liberty  Defined.  95 

to  adjust  itself  to  the  temperament  and 
ideas  of  its  leader. 

The  reluctance  to  back  up  the  minister, 
so  frequently  met  with  in  our  churches, 
is  due  no  doubt  in  part  to  the  training 
which  laymen  receive  in  the  business 
world.  In  business  they  lay  down  their 
own  plans  without  advice  or  interference. 
They  say  to  one  man,  "Come,"  and  he 
comes;  to  another,  "Go,"  and  he  goes. 
Such  experience  begets  in  many  men  a 
sort  of  absolutism  which  works  mischief 
whenever  it  is  introduced  into  the  church. 
It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the 
eye  of  a  needle  than  for  men  of  a  certain 
type  to  accept  graciously  outside  advice, 
or  to  co-operate  in  the  execution  of  plans 
forged  in  the  brain  of  another.  The  re- 
fusal of  church-members  to  subordinate 
individual  wishes  and  purposes  to  the 
working  out  of  a  consistent  and  definite 
policy  has  crushed  many  a  minister  and 
wrecked  many  a  church.  Jesus  himself 
could  do  no  mighty  work  among  people 


96     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

who  had  no  confidence  in  him ;  and  unless 
laymen  have  sufficient  confidence  in  their 
pastor  to  follow  him,  his  ministry  must 
be  disappointing  to  them  and  disastrous 
to  him.  Brethren,  if  your  minister  is  ca- 
pable of  leading,  follow  him.  If  he  is 
incapable,  hand  him  his  resignation,  and 
secure  his  successor.  To  call  a  man  your 
leader,  and  then  tie  him  hand  and  foot,  is 
action  unworthy  of  sensible  men. 

But  here,  again,  liberty  has  its  limits. 
Laymen  have  a  right  to  help  devise  as 
well  as  to  execute.  It  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  they  will  consent  to  be  au- 
tomata in  the  working  out  of  ministerial 
ideas.  If  a  minister  is  crotchety  or  auto- 
cratic or  bull-headed;  if  he  refuses  to  take 
laymen  into  his  counsel ;  if  he  insists  on 
having  everything  his  own  way,  and  that, 
too,  before  sundown ;  if  he  attempts,  in 
short,  to  be  a  czar,  —  he  need  not  be  sur- 
prised to  find  some  morning  that  his 
sceptre  is  broken  and  that  his  throne 
has  passed  to  another. 


Sympathy.  97 


XIV. 

Sympathy. 

But  time  and  money  and  liberty  are 
not  enough.  A  minister,  like  other  men, 
must  live  by  every  word  that  proceedeth 
out  of  the  mouth  of  God.  And  one  of 
God's  words  is  sympathy.  By  sympathy 
I  do  not  mean  that  pinched  and  insipid 
thing  which  the  word  sympathy  often- 
times suggests.  Sympathy  is  more  than 
pity  or  commiseration.  A  man  does  not 
like  to  be  pitied.  Pity  suggests  inferi- 
ority, and  easily  slides  into  contempt. 
"How  I  do  pity  ministers!"  is  a  senti- 
mental ejaculation  often  heard  on  the  lips 
of  persons  who  know  something  of  the 
trials  which  fall  to  the  average  parson's 
lot.  But  why  pity  ministers  more  than 
other  men.?  Their  life  is  no  harder  than 
that  of  others.     Do  not  all  mortals  have 


98     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

their  drudgeries  and  bitter  cups,  their 
burdens  and  crowns  of  thorns  ?  Why 
should  a  minister  be  exempt  ?  Suppose 
he  is  gossiped  about  and  maligned,  mis- 
understood and  hated?  It  is  enough  for 
the  servant  that  he  be  as  his  Master,  and 
the  disciple  as  his  Lord.  A  man  who 
expects  to  be  kept  done  up  in  cotton 
has  no  business  to  enter  the  ministry. 
He  must  take  up  his  cross  daily,  and 
ought  not  to  whine  about  it.  Constant 
commiseration  is  debilitating.  Whatever 
the  clergyman's  distresses  and  miseries, 
he  should  never  be  petted  or  coddled. 

But  sympathy  warms  and  feeds  the 
heart.  It  is  fellow-feeling.  It  is  feeling 
in  company  with  another.  Every  true 
man  needs  it.  It  is  tonic.  It  is  life. 
Without  sympathy  the  minister  sickens 
and  starves.  The  nobler  the  man,  the 
more  dependent  he  is  on  human  compan- 
ionship and  love.  Coarse  and  callous  men 
are  indifferent  to  environment,  but  men 
of  fine  sensibilities  faint  and  fall  unless 


Sympathy.  99 

braced  by  hearts  which  love  them.  There 
is  nothing  more  pathetic  in  the  Gospels 
than  Jesus'  question  to  the  disciples  in 
the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  "  Could  ye 
not  watch  with  me  one  hour  ? " 

The  loneliness  of  the  minister  —  have 
you  ever  thought  of  it  ?  He  is  one  of 
the  most  solitary  of  mortals.  He  moves 
among  men,  but  he  is  isolated  from  them. 
Like  his  Master,  he  treads  the  wine-press 
alone.  The  world  for  which  he  labors  is 
openly  hostile  or  chillingly  indifferent. 
The  words  are  still  sadly  significant :  "  Be- 
hold I  send  you  forth  as  sheep  in  the 
midst  of  wolves."  The  wolves  do  not  use 
their  teeth  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  the 
Roman  Empire ;  but  teeth  they  still  have, 
and  every  minister  who  does  his  duty  is 
doomed  to  be  torn  to  pieces  in  many  a 
circle  of  the  godless  and  at  many  a  dinner- 
table  of  the  Pharisees  and  the  Sadducees. 
No  man  can  proclaim  with  unfaltering 
accent  the  message  written  in  the  New 
Testament  without  encountering  the  vin- 


100   Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

dictive  and  strenuous  opposition  of  the 
world.  The  Sabbath-breakers  and  the 
libertines  and  the  rumsellers,  and  the  gam- 
blers of  all  stripes  and  sizes,  and  the 
fops  and  cynics  and  idlers,  will  all  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  his  teaching,  and  will  either 
hoot  at  him,  or  pass  by  on  the  other  side 
in  sullen  silence.  It  is  a  cold  and  unre- 
sponsive world  to  which  the  preacher 
brings  his  message. 

Since,  then,  the  world  is  unsympathetic, 
the  church  should  glow  with  enthusiasm 
and  good-will.  Alas !  many  churches  are 
almost  as  dead  as  the  world.  Laymen  in 
discouraging  numbers  do  not  rally  round 
their  pastor  like  brothers  round  a  brother. 
They  do  not  feel  with  him.  They  con- 
sider him  an  alien.  Such  laymen  are 
often  interested  in  the  social  prestige  of 
the  church,  and  take  pride  in  its  financial 
prosperity,  but  they  have  no  fraternal  in- 
terest in  the  man  who  fills  the  office  of 
shepherd  and  teacher.  They  forget  that 
a  minister  is  human,  and  needs  encourage- 


Sympathy.  loi 

ment  and  affection.  They  are  good  men, 
but  sympathy  is  not  one  of  their  graces. 

It  is  not  hostility  but  indifference  which 
kills  preachers.  Opposition  on  the  part 
of  obstreperous  saints  may  at  times  prove 
medicinal,  and  prepare  a  minister  for 
larger  work.  But  apathy  —  it  is  fatal.  It 
will  take  the  heart  out  of  a  giant.  It  can 
discourage  even  a  St.  Paul.  To  plan  and 
hope  and  toil  and  pray  while  all  around 
him  professing  Christians  stand  as  list- 
less and  unconcerned  as  were  the  crowds 
which  watched  the  progress  of  the  aw- 
ful tragedy  on  Golgotha,  —  this  is  a  form 
of  crucifixion  which  many  a  minister  has 
suffered,  and  in  many  a  parish  the  tragedy 
still  goes  on. 

Even  at  the  best  a  minister's  work 
is  full  of  discouragement  and  disappoint- 
ment. All  that  is  good  and  bad  in  the 
human  heart  comes  to  the  surface  in  a 
Christian  church.  One  never  knows  men 
until  he  attempts  to  live  with  them. 
Working  together  in  the  bonds  of  church 


I02    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

fellowship  gives  surprising  revelations  of 
human  nature,  and  furnishes  added  proofs 
of  the  need  of  redemption  through  Christ. 
Scoffers  often  grow  voluble  over  the  self- 
ishness and  hypocrisy  inside  the  churches, 
but  ministers  can  add  several  chapters 
to  the  scoffers'  doleful  story.  No  matter 
how  faithfully  a  clergyman  may  labor, 
he  must  bear  always  on  his  heart  the 
burden  of  work  done  apparently  in  vain. 
Under  his  ministry  some  men  degenerate 
into  hypocrites,  others  fall  into  open  sin, 
others  are  carried  away  by  heresies  and 
superstitions.  The  sword  passes  through 
his  heart  again  and  again.  Because  he 
keeps  his  despondencies  and  despairs  out 
of  his  sermons,  do  not  imagine  he  has 
none.  There  are  crises  in  every  minis- 
ter's life  in  which  a  cheering  word  is 
meat  and  drink  for  forty  days.  Such 
words  are  cups  of  cold  water  which  con- 
siderate laymen  will  never  fail  to  give. 

It   is   a  pernicious   heresy  that   all  the 
church  wants  of  men  is  their  money.     No 


Sympathy.  103 

church  can  live  and  grow  on  gold  alone. 
There  are  other  things  not  a  whit  less 
necessary  which  laymen  have  it  in  their 
power  to  give,  and  which  they  too  often 
thoughtlessly  withhold.     Just    a  word    of 
rejoicing  when  the  Spirit  works  mightily 
in  the  parish,  and  the  sterile  fields  burst 
into  bloom  ;  just  a  word  of  regret  when 
the   wheels   of    the    Lord's   chariot   drag 
heavy   and  slow  — such  a  word   dropped 
occasionally  into  the  ear  of  the  leader  is 
one    of    the    most   valuable    contributions 
which  any  layman  is  able  to  offer.     And 
to  offer  this  is  within  reach  of  the  hum- 
blest.    Even  the  mightiest  of  the  proph- 
ets   has    his    strength    increased    by   the 
whispered    "Godspeed"    of   the   poorest 
and   obscurest   of    God's   saints.     If    the 
Son  of   God  himself  in  a  darkened  hour 
craved  the  support  of  steadfast  and  sym- 
pathetic hearts,   be  assured  that  no  one 
of    his    ministers    in    these    hurried    and 
earthy-hearted   times    is    above   the   need 
of  the  sympathy  of  his  brethren. 


104   Qui^t  lalks  With  Earnest  People. 


XV. 

Co-operation. 

But  sympathy  is  not  complete  until  it 
expresses  itself  in  action.  Good  feelings 
are  not  enough.  They  must  blossom  in 
good  deeds.  Sympathy  without  works  is 
dead.  Minister  and  laymen  must  work 
together.  When  they  do  this,  all  things 
are  possible.  It  is  because  they  do  not 
do  it  that  the  millennium  is  so  far  away. 

The  curse  of  the  centuries  is  the  delu- 
sion that  religion  is  a  thing  which  can  be 
conducted  and  controlled  by  the  clergy 
alone.  For  a  thousand  years  the  policy 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  fostered  this  delu- 
sion. The  entire  administration  and  wor- 
ship of  the  church  were  monopolized  by 
the  hierarchy,  while  the  laity  degenerated 
into  disfranchised  spectators.  In  many 
countries  this  is    Catholicism  still.     One 


Co-operation.  105 

of  the  sounds  which  every  tourist  through 
Europe  brings  home  with  him  is  the 
monotonous  droning  of  the  priests  heard 
in  all  the  cathedrals  and  churches. 
Whether  any  one  is  present  or  not,  the 
industrious  repetition  of  unintelligible 
words  goes  on.  Christianity  seems  to  be 
a  vast  machine  whose  wheels  must  be  kept 
everlastingly  turning,  and  whether  the 
turning  has  any  effect  on  human  life  or 
not,  it  is  the  business  of  the  clergy  to  keep 
the  machine  grinding.  From  such  foolish- 
ness Martin  Luther  endeavored  to  deliver 
Christendom,  but  three  hundred  years 
after  his  death  we  have  not  yet  reached 
the  promised  land.  The  virus  of  the 
Romish  poison  is  in  us  still.  Errors  in- 
grained by  the  precept  and  practice  of 
centuries  are  not  easily  eradicated.  The 
luxury  of  looking  on  while  the  priest  does 
the  work  is  too  sweet  to  be  surrendered. 
We  count  ourselves  Protestants,  but  retain 
the  temper  and  habits  of  our  Roman 
Catholic    ancestors.     In   theory  we    hold 


io6    Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

that  every  Christian  is  a  king  and  priest 
unto  God ;  that  the  veil  has  been  rent  in 
twain,  giving  every  follower  of  Jesus  un- 
hindered access  to  the  holy  of  holies ; 
that  to  every  redeemed  soul  the  command 
is  given,  "Go,  disciple  the  nations;"  and 
that  all  church-members  —  both  laymen 
and  clergymen  —  are  brethren  in  the 
Lord.  This  is  our  theory,  but  we  shrink 
from  living  it. 

In  many  a  Protestant  parish  the  min- 
ister is  practically  a  priest.  To  him  are 
committed  all  the  mysteries.  His  privi- 
leges and  powers  are  unique.  He  must 
do  all  the  thinking,  planning,  planting, 
harvesting.  He  is  responsible  for  every- 
thing that  happens,  from  the  conversion 
of  a  soul  to  the  creation  of  a  deficit.  To 
him  are  given  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Whatsoever  he  binds  is  bound, 
and  whatsoever  he  looses  is  loosed.  The 
church  is  known  by  his  name.  Its  own 
members  have  a  habit  of  speaking  of  it 
as    though   they  were   outsiders.     If   for 


Co-operation.  107 

any  reason  prosperity  lingers,  the  fault 
lies  at  his  door.  The  laity  are  spectators. 
They  look  on,  listen,  put  money  into  the 
contribution-box.  This  latter  makes  them 
bold  to  do  more.  They  criticise,  pass 
judgment,  even  crowd  into  the  seat  of  the 
scornful.  The  church  is  a  Sunday  theatre, 
and  they  take  a  box  for  the  season.  The 
preacher  is  the  star  actor,  and  the  quartet 
is  the  orchestra  furnishing  music  between 
the  acts.  This  is  not  caricature.  It  is  a 
photograph  —  a  snap  shot  taken  on  the 
spot  —  of  a  section  of  current  Christi- 
anity. The  photograph  may  suggest  why 
we  have  so  many  distressing  and  unsolved 
problems.  Until  laymen  become  helpers, 
yoke-fellows,  servants,  fellow-laborers,  her- 
alds, pastors,  fishers  of  men,  co-workers 
with  their  leader  and  with  God,  the  church 
is,  of  all  institutions,  most  miserable,  and 
we  are  yet  in  our  sins. 

Is  there  a  church  problem  which  co- 
operation will  not  solve }  Take,  for  in- 
stance, that  of  the  Sunday  evening  service. 


io8    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

Church-members  are  rapidly  reaching  the 
conclusion  that  for  them  one  Sunday  ser- 
vice is  sufficient.  Their  conviction  is  also 
steadfast  that  the  pastor  should  preach  a 
Sunday  evening  sermon.  The  pastor  goes 
into  the  pulpit,  and  his  people  remain  in 
their  parlors.  The  result  is  a  disheart- 
ened preacher,  and  an  appalling  area  of 
unoccupied  pews.  This  is  the  Sunday 
evening  problem  !  How  can  it  be  solved  } 
Simply  by  laymen  going  to  church 
Sunday  evening.  Why  should  they  not 
go  }  If  the  need  for  an  evening  service 
has  vanished,  then  by  all  means  let  the 
service  be  abolished.  Each  church  must 
determine  this  for  itself.  What  sense  is 
there  in  squandering  the  time  of  the 
sexton  and  the  nervous  energy  of  the 
preacher  in  keeping  up  a  service  the  need 
of  which  has  disappeared  }  But  needed  or 
not,  so  long  as  the  service  is  maintained,  it 
is  the  duty  of  laymen  to  attend  it. 

"We  must  keep  the  church  open,"  cry 
the  stay-at-homes,  not  knowing  what  they 


Co-operation.  109 

say.  When  is  a  church  open  ?  When  the 
doors  are  unbolted  and  the  gas  is  lighted  ? 
No !  When  a  church  keeps  open  house 
it  itself  must  be  present  to  welcome  the 
guests.  An  open  church  means  a  church 
with  Christians  in  it  ready  to  welcome  all 
comers.  The  world  cares  nothing  for 
empty  church  buildings.  Without  people 
in  them  they  are  cold  as  refrigerators  and 
depressing  as  sepulchres.  A  dwindling 
and  deserted  church  service  is  one  of  the 
deadliest  of  all  enemies  of  faith.  Better 
hold  no  service  whatever  than  a  service 
with  an  occupant  in  every  tenth  pew. 
The  Sunday  evening  service  is  not  attrac- 
tive unless  made  so  by  the  Lord's  people. 
Where  people  in  large  numbers  congre- 
gate, other  people  want  to  go.  It  is  a  cold 
world,  and  a  fire  always  draws  a  crowd. 
There  is  no  fire  so  congenial  and  attrac- 
tive as  that  kindled  by  a  large  worshipping 
congregation.  To  suppose  that  the  un- 
converted are  going  to  rush  into  church 
buildings  left  vacant  by  the  very  men  who 


1 10   Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

profess  to  believe  that  "he  that  believeth 
and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved ;  but  he  that 
disbelieveth  shall  be  condemned,"  is  to 
indulge  in  the  suppositions  of  a  fool.  A 
preacher  of  extraordinary  gifts  may  draw 
a  crowd  into  a  building,  but  little  is  gained 
unless  laymen  are  present  to  draw  the 
crowd  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  not 
the  preacher  but  the  church  against  which 
the  gates  of  Hades  shall  not  prevail. 
When  laymen  work  to  fill  the  churches, 
preachers  will  preach  better  than  they  do. 
Every  minister  ought  to  have  as  many 
assistant  pastors  as  there  are  members 
of  his  church.  Unless  backed  up  by  his 
church,  he  can  do  nothing.  Peter  was 
mighty  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  not  be- 
cause he  had  a  fluent  tongue,  but  because 
there  stood  behind  him  one  hundred  and 
twenty  men  and  women  in  whose  faces 
there  lingered  traces  of  the  glory  of  the 
tongues  of  fire. 


Considerateness.  Ill 


XVI. 

Considerateness. 

It  is  a  high  virtue,  and  a  rare  one. 
It  involves  throwing  one's  self  into  an- 
other's place.  And  that  takes  time.  And 
folks  are  busy.  And  that  is  why  there 
are  so  many  inconsiderate  people. 

Have  you  ever  made  a  serious  effort 
to  put  yourself  into  a  minister's  place? 
Do  you  realize  that  he  is  a  public  ser- 
vant, and  that  a  thousand  people  have  a 
claim  upon  his  strength  and  time .?  There 
are  only  twenty-four  hours  in  the  day, 
and  for  every  waking  hour  there  are 
at  least  a  dozen  claimants.  Evidently  a 
minister  cannot  do  everything  which  he 
may  be  asked  to  do. 

"  I  wonder  where  our  pastor  is.  I  do 
not  see  why  he  is  not  here ! "  petulantly 
exclaimed  one   evening  in  my  hearing  a 


112    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

leading  church  woman  at  a  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

anniversary.  She  was  a  saint.  She  was 
zealous  to  have  her  pastor  foremost  in 
every  good  work  and  conspicuous  in  the 
highest  seat  at  all  the  feasts.  It  nettled 
her  to  think  that  he  of  all  men  should 
be  absent  from  an  occasion  so  important. 
She  did  not  stop  to  think  that  a  minis- 
ter cannot  attend  all  the  meetings  held 
in  his  own  church,  much  less  those  of 
all  the  philanthropic  and  religious  organ- 
izations which  may  be  doing  business  in 
his  town.  On  that  very  night  the  sup- 
posed culprit  was  helping  forward  two 
other  deserving  enterprises,  one  early  in 
the  evening  by  his  presence,  and  the 
other  later  on  by  an  address.  It  is  self- 
evident,  and  yet  needs  to  be  frequently 
asserted,  that  a  minister  cannot  be  in  two 
places  at  the  same  time. 

Laymen,  as  a  rule,  expect  too  much ; 
not  too  much  thought  in  sermons,  not 
too  much  Christlikeness  in  character,  but 
too  much  pottering  around  at  miscellane- 


Considerateness.  113 

ous  things.  In  many  a  parish  too  much 
pastoral  calling  is  demanded.  There  are 
church-members  whose  chief  end  in  life, 
apparently,  is  to  be  called  upon ;  and 
there  are  clergymen  foolish  enough  to 
cater  to  this  morbid  craving.  They  cod- 
dle the  soreheads  to  reduce  their  croak- 
ing. They  steal  time  from  their  study 
to  keep  people  in  a  good  humor  who 
have  an  abnormal  liking  for  attention. 
This  is  all  wrong.  The  chief  end  of 
man,  or  woman,  is  not  receiving  pastoral 
calls ;  and  church-members  who  grow 
grumpy  if  not  called  upon  up  to  the 
level  of  their  fancy  ought  to  be  excom- 
municated as  disturbers  of  the  peace. 
There  are  sins  as  unchristian  and  mis- 
chievous as  drunkenness  and  prize-fight- 
ing, and  chronic  grumbling  is  one  of 
them.  It  is  a  demon  to  be  cast  out  of 
a  church  at  all  hazards.  No  sensible 
pastor  will  ever  squander  time  on  a  pro- 
fessing Christian  who  has  made  it  the 
rule  of   his  life   not   to   minister   but   to 


114   Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

be  ministered  unto,  and  who  compels 
many  to  give  their  lives  a  ransom  for 
him.  Pastoral  calling  has  its  place ;  and 
a  minister  who  turns  his  back  upon  it 
commits,  in  my  judgment,  a  serious 
blunder.  Sermons  are  warmer  and  juicier 
after  the  pastor  has  been  in  the  homes 
of  his  people.  There  is  no  book  quite 
so  inspiring  and  suggestive  to  a  genuine 
preacher  as  the  life  of  his  parish.  But 
pastoral  calling  may  become  a  millstone 
round  the  minister's  neck.  He  may  do 
too  much  of  it.  He  may  wear  himself 
out  in  the  attempt  to  satisfy  the  vora- 
cious demands  of  unreasonable  people. 

Laymen  can  help  the  pastor  in  pastoral 
work  by  being  considerate.  It  is  not  for 
them  to  dictate  how  many  calls  shall  be 
made  each  year,  or  who  are  the  people  to 
be  called  upon.  All  such  exactions  are 
arbitrary  and  tyrannical.  The  pastor 
knows  his  parish  better  than  any  one 
else.  He  knows  the  people  who  need  him 
most,  knows   his   own    strength  and   the 


Considerateness.  1 1 5 

various  demands  upon  it,  and  should, 
therefore,  be  given  large  liberty  in  plan- 
ning his  pastoral  labors.  To  you  out- 
siders the  calling  may  seem  haphazard  or 
partial  or  slovenly,  but  it  will  be  neces- 
sary for  you  to  know  a  great  many  things 
which  you  do  not  know  now  before  you 
are  fitted  to  pass  judgment  on  him.  Be 
considerate.  To  throw  at  him  as  he  en- 
ters your  door  the  number  of  months 
which  have  elapsed  since  his  last  call,  or 
to  remind  him  that  some  one  else  has 
received  two  calls  to  your  one,  or  to  in- 
sinuate that  his  predecessor  was  ever  so 
much  more  faithful  in  calling  than  some 
men  you  have  known,  is  a  species  of  re- 
fined cruelty  which  Christian  love  ought 
to  abolish.  The  only  Christian  way  to 
get  even  with  the  minister,  who  in  your 
judgment  is  remiss  in  coming  to  see  you, 
is  to  call  upon  him  yourself.  If,  as  you 
think,  he  is  doing  you  an  injustice,  why 
not  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his  head .?  Have 
a  quiet  talk  with  him  in  his  study. 


Ii6    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

Or  if  you  are  not  brave  enough  to  ven- 
ture into  the  parsonage,  request  him  by- 
letter  to  call  on  you.  If  you  have  a  sor- 
row that  you  want  to  talk  about,  or  a  sin 
which  you  desire  to  confess,  or  a  problem 
on  which  you  seek  light,  send  for  him. 
He  will  be  glad  to  come.  It  delights  a 
minister  to  have  his  people  lay  their  per- 
plexities before  him.  He  is  ordained 
to  help  people.  He  cannot  help  them 
unless  they  tell  him  what  it  is  that 
troubles  them.  How  much  more  sensi- 
ble to  invite  him  into  your  house,  and 
receive  from  him  the  help  you  need,  than 
to  sit  and  sulk  and  make  the  heart  bitter 
by  counting  up  the  weeks  which  come 
and  go  before  the  door-bell  rings.  And 
if  you  are  sick,  of  course  you  will  send 
for  him.  Why  not }  You  send  for  your 
physician,  why  not  for  your  minister.? 
Your  physician  does  not  know  you  are 
sick  unless  notified.  How  can  the  min- 
ister be  expected  to  know .?  He  is  a 
representative  of  the  omniscient  God,  but 


Considerateness.  1 1 7 

he  himself  has  all  the  limitations  of  men. 
The  Almighty  does  not  see  fit  to  indicate 
to  his  prophets  by  special  revelation  the 
physical  condition  of  the  members  of 
the  church.  When  you  are  sick  let  the 
pastor  know  it.  That  is  sensible,  consid- 
erate, Christian.  But  to  lie  in  bed  for 
one  week  or  six,  wondering  why  he 
doesn't  come,  telling  every  caller  in  plain- 
tive tones  that  the  pastor  has  not  yet 
called,  and  to  keep  on  whispering  to 
your  friends  for  six  months  after  you 
get  well  that  during  your  illness  the  pas- 
tor never  came  to  see  you  —  that  is  neither 
sensible  nor  considerate  nor  Christian. 
Let  your  considerateness  be  known  unto 
all  men,  especially  your  pastor. 


Ii8    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 


XVII. 

Thoughtlessness. 

It  causes  a  deal  of  mischief  in  the 
Church  of  God.  It  is  not  an  inhospitable 
disposition,  but  thoughtlessness,  which 
leads  many  church-members  to  neglect 
strangers  who  come  to  worship  with 
them.  Let  us  hope  it  is  the  same  dis- 
temper which  glues  men  sometimes  to 
the  end  of  their  pew,  so  that  late  comers 
are  obliged  to  clamber  in  over  their  knees. 
It  is  not  malice,  but  heedlessness,  which 
impels  a  layman  to  rummage  under  his 
pew  for  overshoes  and  umbrella  during 
the  singing  of  the  closing  hymn.  What 
is  it  but  absent-mindedness  that  starts 
belated  pew-holders  up  the  aisle  during 
the  singing  of  the  anthem  ?  Not  lack 
of  mind,  but  lack  of  thought,  is  respon- 
sible for  the  conduct  of  the  woman  who 


Thoughtlessness.  119 

disturbs  her  neighbors  through  prayer 
and  Scripture  reading  by  her  incessant 
whispering.  And  what  but  paralysis  of 
the  organ  of  thought  can  account  for  the 
fact  that  a  congregation  of  courteous  peo- 
ple will  sometimes  turn  their  back  at  the 
close  of  service  upon  a  minister  who  has 
preached  in  exchange  with  the  pastor 
without  a  word  of  greeting  or  thanks  ? 
To-day,  as  in  the  days  of  Isaiah,  the 
Almighty  has  just  cause  to  complain, 
"  My  people  doth  not  consider." 

Thoughtlessness  is  one  of  the  demons 
which  every  minister  soon  learns  to  fear. 
For  instance,  if  some  good  brother  seizes 
him  while  on  the  way  to  the  pulpit,  and 
pours  into  his  ears  the  latest  gossip,  it  is 
not  considered  ministerial  to  say  to  such 
a  man,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan." 
Though  oppressed  and  afflicted,  he  must 
not  open  his  mouth.  Or  some  nervous 
saint  may  keep  turning  over  the  pages 
of  the  hymn-book  straight  through  the 
preaching    of   the   sermon,   not   knowing 


I20   Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

that  the  constant  turning  of  pages  may- 
be to  a  sensitive  man  as  distracting  as 
the  buzzing  of  a  full-fledged  sawmill. 
Or  at  the  close  of  the  service  some  one 
may  rush  forward,  and  drag  him  from  the 
pulpit  stairs  into  a  subject  a  thousand 
miles  away  from  the  sermon.  This  is 
"the  most  unkindest  cut  of  all."  To 
labor  hard  to  bring  a  congregation  into 
the  central  glory  of  a  truth,  and  then 
have  some  one  dash  forward  at  the 
earliest  opportunity  —  presumptively  to 
render  thanks  for  the  help  he  has  re- 
ceived, but  in  reality  to  ventilate  his 
mind  on  some  subject  totally  foreign  to 
the  day,  or  to  propound  a  curious  conun- 
drum which  has  no  conceivable  relation 
to  anything  which  has  been  said  —  is  in- 
expressibly galling  and  disheartening. 
After  a  preacher  has  struck  with  all  his 
might  on  the  heart-chords  of  a  congrega- 
tion, and  then  discovers  that  in  at  least 
one  of  his  apparently  most  attentive  lis- 
teners there  is  no  hint  of  a  response,  he 


Thoughtlessness.  12 1 

instinctively  looks  around  for  Elijah's 
juniper-tree.  Why  God  allows  the  devil 
to  play  such  pranks  on  ministers  in  the 
very  hour  of  their  exhaustion  is  not  yet 
revealed.  It  may  be  to  bring  them  more 
completely  into  the  fellowship  of  the  suf- 
fering of  his  Son.  At  the  close  of  one 
of  Jesus'  sermons  on  the  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost,  a  preoccupied  egotist 
shouted  out,  "  Master,  speak  to  my 
brother,  that  he  divide  the  inheritance 
with  me."  It  would  be  hazardous  to  say 
that  the  Son  of  man  ever  lost  his  temper ; 
but  if  there  is  a  trace  of  impatience  vis- 
ible anywhere  in  his  recorded  sayings,  it 
is  in  the  answer  which  he  gave  to  this 
exasperating  and  incorrigible  sinner. 

But  a  dash  of  cold  water  at  the  close 
of  a  sermon  is  not  so  fatal  as  an  inter- 
ruption in  the  midst  of  sermon-building. 
It  is  difficult  for  the  average  man  to 
realize  the  value  of  uninterrupted  time. 
He  himself  does  not  get  a  day  without 
its  interruptions,  nor  does  he  want  it.     A 


122    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

minister,  however,  if  he  is  to  do  his  best 
work,  must  have  at  least  a  part  of  certain 
days  absolutely  free  from  all  intrusion. 
"  But  I  want  to  see  him  only  a  minute," 
pleads  the  importunate  inquirer,  not  know- 
ing what  he  asks.  He  who  thinks  that 
only  a  minute  is  a  trifle  does  not  know 
the  nature  of  the  mind,  and  has  probably 
done  no  sustained  and  constructive  think- 
ing. "Only  a  minute"  may  ruin  the 
work  of  a  day.  In  a  minute  an  express- 
train  can  be  thrown  from  the  track,  but 
to  place  it  again  on  the  rails  requires  the 
arduous  labor  of  hours.  The  mind  in  its 
highest  operations  moves  more  swiftly 
than  the  limited  express,  and  the  inter- 
ruption of  only  a  minute  may  hurl  the 
train  of  thought  down  an  embankment 
and  stop  all  progress  indefinitely.  In 
the  hot  hours  of  sermonic  creation,  when 
the  mental  furnace  is  seething  and  the 
molten  thought  is  ready  to  be  poured 
into  words,  an  outsider  who  asks  for  a 
minute   not   only  checks  the   momentum 


Thoughtlessness.  123 

of  the  mental  process,  but  chills  the  glow 
of  the  emotions,  and  introduces  into  the 
mind  a  foreign  substance  which  is  not 
easily  cast  out.  In  those  hours  when 
your  pastor  goes  into  the  mountain  to 
commune  with  God,  do  not  let  the  devil 
tempt  you  to  ring  his  door-bell. 

This  seems  all  foolishness  to  some  of 
you.  You  know  ministers  who  are  not 
so  cranky.  They  are  open  at  all  times  to 
their  people.  They  say  so  with  swelling 
pride.  Morning,  afternoon,  and  night  the 
latch-string  is  out,  and  whosoever  will  may 
come.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  there  are  preachers  and  preachers. 
Some  are  carpenters  and  others  are  poets. 
Some  men  build  sermons  as  carpenters 
build  houses,  —  they  manufacture  them. 
They  cut  out  the  material  piece  by  piece, 
join  the  pieces  together,  and  sandpaper 
and  varnish  them  at  their  leisure.  They 
can  drop  their  work  at  any  moment  as 
easily  as  the  carpenter  drops  his  ham- 
mer.     The    poet-preacher   is    a   different 


124    Qjt^i^t  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

man.  His  sermons  are  not  made ;  they 
grow.  Sermons  come  to  him  as  poems 
do,  in  rare  and  luminous  hours,  which 
hours  when  they  come  must  he  seized 
and  used.  Some  days  are  opaque.  No 
light  streams  through.  And  then  there 
comes  — 

One  of  the  charmed  days 

When  the  genius  of  God  doth  flow. 

Mind  and  heart  are  ready.  In  a  few 
hours  the  work  of  weeks  bursts  into  blos- 
som, an  argument  is  forged,  a  truth  is  un- 
folded, a  vision  is  worked  out  into  speech 
which  will  make  glad  many  hearts. 

As  a  rule,  the  preachers  who  see  peo- 
ple at  all  hours  through  the  week  do  not 
see  many  people  at  the  hour  of  service 
on  Sunday.  If  your  minister  lacks  the 
will-power  to  protect  himself  from  peo- 
ple who  steal  his  time,  you  ought  to  buy 
him  a  large-mouthed  bulldog,  which  shall 
serve  as  a  sort  of  flaming  sword  to  guard 
the  study  door. 


Wajs  of  Killing  a  Sermon.        125 


XVIII. 

Ways  of  Killing  a  Sermon. 

A  LAYMAN  may,  with  a  little  practice, 
develop  amazing  dexterity  in  counteract- 
ing the  influence  of  his  pastor.  After  the 
preacher  has  kindled  by  his  sermon  a  fire 
in  many  hearts,  a  layman  may,  if  indus- 
trious and  enterprising,  extinguish  the  fire 
in  all  the  people  near  him.  It  is  a  criti- 
cal season  in  the  week,  —  the  brief  period 
immediately  succeeding  the  benediction. 
In  those  few  moments  a  layman  can,  if 
he  will,  do  infinite  mischief.  He  can  turn 
his  back  on  the  stranger  that  stands  near- 
est him,  and  show  by  his  conduct  that  the 
pastor's  sermon  on  Brotherliness  is  a  mere 
theory,  not  intended  to  be  reduced  to  prac- 
tice,  at  least  in  that  church.  Or,  if  he 
chooses  to  be  talkative,  he  can  smother 
the  sermon  in  his  conversation.     He  can 


126    Quiet  Talks  with  Earnest  People. 

plunge  into  a  discussion  of  the  music. 
That  theme  is  very  fascinating  and  fatal. 
He  can  say  :  "  How  did  you  enjoy  the 
music  .'*  How  did  you  like  the  Soprano  V 
or,  "  What  did  you  think  of  the  Bass  ? " 
Such  questions  are  exceedingly  effective 
in  the  mouth  of  an  expert  sermon-killer. 

A  dozen  members  of  the  church  pro- 
pounding such  questions  to  every  one  they 
meet  convert  the  house  of  God  into  a 
concert-hall,  and  train  people  to  look  upon 
public  worship  as  a  performance  to  be 
measured  by  the  aesthetic  gratification 
which  it  affords  to  the  congregation. 
Many  a  minister,  after  pouring  out  his 
very  life  to  convict  men  of  their  sins,  or 
to  lift  them  to  the  level  of  some  arduous 
duty,  has  been  cut  to  the  heart  by  hearing 
his  best  people  discussing  in  the  aisles 
the  excellences  or  defects  of  the  anthem, 
and  passing  judgment  on  the  voices  of 
the  singers. 

But  the  question  concerning  music  is 
not  a  whit  more   demoralizing   than   the 


Ways  of  Killing  a  Sermon.        127 

question  heard  even  more  frequently, 
"  How  did  you  like  the  sermon  ?  "  Ask- 
ing that  question  has  become  a  habit 
which  it  will  probably  take  centuries  to 
eradicate.  It  is  a  demon  which  can  be 
cast  out  only  by  prayer  and  fasting.  Even 
the  saints  are  addicted  to  the  use  of  it. 
When  strangers  come  to  the  church,  the 
first  question  at  the  close  of  the  service 
often  is,  ''  How  did  you  like  the  sermon } " 
No  wonder  spiritual  results  of  preaching 
are  so  meagre.  What  can  be  expected 
from  preaching  unless  laymen  realize  that 
they  are  to  follow  up  the  work  of  persua- 
sion by  driving  home  the  word  set  forth 
by  the  preacher.?  Sermons  are  not  toys 
to  be  played  with,  or  pretty  pieces  of  rhet- 
oric on  which  every  member  of  the  con- 
gregation is  expected  to  pass  judgment. 
To  ask,  How  did  you  like  the  sermon  t 
is  to  drag  it  down  to  the  level  of  a  crazy- 
quilt,  or  a  piece  of  crochet-work.  A  ser- 
mon is  not  an  exquisite  bit  of  literary 
bric-a-brac,  to  be  chattered  over  and  judged 


128    Qtciet  Talks  with  Earnest  People. 

by  the  technical  rules  of  art.  It  is  not  a 
dumpling  into  which  every  self-constituted 
critic  is  invited  to  stick  his  fork  that  he 
may  praise  or  condemn  the  cook.  A  ser- 
mon is  a  solemn  warning,  a  bugle-call  to 
duty,  a  burning  condemnation,  an  earnest 
stroke  against  a  giant  wrong,  an  exhorta- 
tion to  high  endeavor,  the  illumination  of 
a  majestic  truth.  What  a  question  for  an 
earnest  Christian  to  ask  inside  the  house 
of  God,  —  "  How  did  you  like  it .?  " 

Sermons  are  preached,  not  to  be  liked, 
but  to  be  accepted  and  lived.  Suppose, 
pray,  you  did  not  like  the  sermon !  What 
of  it }  Suppose  that  scapegrace  who  sat 
with  you  in  the  pew  went  away  disgusted ! 
When  the  arrow  goes  in,  curses  often 
come  out.  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  Peter  and  John,  were  not  anx- 
ious that  their  sermons  should  be  liked. 
Why  should  you  be  so  solicitous  concern- 
ing the  opinion  of  the  critics  }  Never  ask 
again  that  insipid  question,  How  did  you 
like   the   sermon  t     Such   a   question   in- 


Ways  of  Killing  a  Sermon,         1 29 

jures  the  one  who  asks  it,  and  debauches 
the  person  who  answers  it.  It  trains  men 
to  measure  sermons  by  false  standards, 
and  to  seek  for  entertainment  rather  than 
for  truth. 

No  wonder  so  many  ministers  have  been 
spoiled,  and  are  to-day  preaching  sermons 
full  of  everything  else  but  the  gospel. 
They  itch  to  catch  the  crowd,  and  cater 
for  applause,  because  they  have  been  ruined 
by  churches  which  have  trained  them  to 
think  of  the  sermon  as  something  to  be 
admired,  eulogized,  exulted  over.  A  true 
preacher  speaks  for  God,  and  whether  the 
people  like  the  message  or  not  is  the  very 
last  of  all  questions  to  be  considered.  No 
church  can  have  conversions  in  it  whose 
leading  members  ask  the  unconverted, 
How  did  you  like  the  sermon }  When  a 
man  is  wrestling  with  problems  of  life  and 
destiny,  it  is  an  insult  to  throw  at  him 
such  a  frivolous  inquiry.  It  calls  him  off 
from  a  decision  unspeakably  momentous, 
invites  him  to  pose  as  a  critic,  and  requests 


130    Quiet  Talks  with  Earnest  People. 

him  to  pass  judgment  on  the  instrument 
which  in  the  providence  of  God  is  being 
used  for  his  regeneration.  Many  an  aroused 
soul  has  been  hurled  from  a  serious  mood 
of  conviction  into  the  mood  of  a  trifler  by, 
How  did  you  like  the  sermon  ? 

It  is  impossible  for  earnest  men  to  do 
anything  in  the  pulpit  unless  they  are 
seconded  by  earnest  men  in  the  pews. 
Of  what  avail  are  passion  and  solemnity 
and  burning  earnestness  in  the  preacher 
if  the  sermon  is  followed  up  by  a  swarm 
of  triflers  propounding  idle  questions  ? 
Holy  impressions  are  easily  dissipated.  It 
does  not  take  much  to  strangle  new-born 
aspirations.  One  silly  interrogation  may 
crush  a  rising  impulse  toward  God.  The 
church  should  carry  on  and  complete  the 
work  begun  by  the  preacher.  All  conver- 
sation at  the  close  of  the  service  should 
deepen  and  fasten  the  impression  of  the 
hour.  The  church  should  be  a  trumpet 
through  which  the  voice  of  the  preacher 
gains   volume    and   power.      But    if    the 


Ways  of  Killing  a  Sermon.  1 3 1 
trumpet  gives  an  uncertain  voice,  who  shall 
prepare  himself  for  war  ?  If  the  preacher 
cries,  "  In  God's  name,  act ! "  and  the 
saints  stand  around  and  ask,  "  How  do  you 
like  that  ? "  who  of  the  unconverted  will 
prepare  himself  for  the  marriage  supper 
of  the  Lamb? 

The  crucial  question  is  not.  Did  you 
like  it?  but.  Did  it  help  you?  Did  it 
comfort  you  ?  Did  it  give  you  new  visions 
of  duty  ?  Did  it  bring  you  nearer  to  the 
Lord  ?  The  parable  of  the  sower  has  an 
abiding  significance.  Those  birds  which 
devour  seeds  are  like  the  poor:  they  are 
always  with  us.  In  our  days  such  birds 
have  no  feathers,  but  in  instinct  they  are 
true  to  the  nature  of  the  birds  which  Jesus 
saw;  and  one  of  their  favorite  methods  of 
rendering  vain  the  work  of  the  Sower  is 
asking.  How  did  you  like  the  sermon  ? 


132     Quiet  Talks  with  Earnest  People. 


XIX. 

inspiring  the  Minister, 

What  means  the  clamor  of  the  churches 
for  young  men  ?  It  means  that  youth  has 
vim  and  passion,  and  that  the  gospel  has 
fresh  stimulus  and  tonic  on  the  lips  of 
men  whose  hearts  have  not  been  saddened 
by  disappointment  or  worn  out  by  burdens 
too  heavy  to  be  borne.  He  is  a  rare  man 
who  in  our  day  can  do  the  work  of  a  pas- 
tor for  thirty  years  and  maintain  his  energy 
undiminished  and  his  enthusiasm  unim- 
paired. With  multiplied  experiences  to 
draw  the  fire  out  of  him,  no  wonder  many 
a  minister  becomes  in  later  life  as  cold  as 
an  extinct  volcano. 

If  you  wish  to  keep  your  minister  young, 
be  regular  in  your  church  attendance. 
Possibly  a  minister  ought  to  rise  superior 
to   his    environment,   and   speak  with   as 


Inspiring  the  Minister.  133 

much  unction  to  quartered  oak  as  to  liv- 
ing hearts ;  but  a  minister  after  all  is  only 
human,  and  in  the  course  of  time  empty 
pews  wear  on  him.  Laymen,  as  a  rule, 
do  not  realize  the  importance  of  church 
attendance.  If  they  did  they  would  not 
so  often  allow  a  cloud,  or  a  shower,  or  a 
wind,  or  a  snow,  or  a  caller,  or  a  news- 
paper, or  a  headache,  or  a  fit  of  laziness, 
to  keep  them  at  home.  A  minister  de- 
serted by  his  representative  men  dies. 
He  dies  by  inches.  No  man  can  preach 
with  sustained  fire  and  hope  whose  lead- 
ing people  show  by  their  desultory  atten- 
dance that  public  worship  is  to  them  one  of 
the  incidentals  or  electives  of  life.  Noth- 
ing will  so  surely  take  the  spring  and  snap 
out  of  a  man  as  speaking  on  great  themes 
to  empty  pews.  It  makes  a  man  prema- 
turely old.  Brethren,  be  in  your  place  at 
the  hour  for  public  worship.  The  church 
is  expected  by  the  world  to  render  worship 
on  the  Lord's  Day  to  God.  The  rendering 
of  this  worship  is  one  of  the  sacrifices  to 


134    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

be  offered  perpetually  by  the  followers  of 
Jesus.  The  world's  redemption  is  delayed 
by  Christians  who  mar  the  sacrifice  by 
selfish  neglect  to  take  part  in  it.  Be  in 
your  place  every  time.  Your  presence 
gives  life  to  the  preacher.  Your  face 
helps  him  more  than  you  can  ever  know. 
Your  faithfulness  strengthens  the  grip  of 
Christ  upon  your  community,  and  hastens 
the  coming  of  the  golden  age. 

And  take  heed  how  you  hear.  Listen- 
ing is  a  high  art.  Among  many  Christians 
it  is  a  lost  art.  Make  it  your  business  to 
pay  attention.  Whip  your  mind  whenever 
it  runs  off.  Go  after  it  a  hundred  times 
if  necessary.  Cudgel  it  back  to  its  work. 
The  church  is  not  a  place  for  lounging  or 
dreaming.  Public  worship  is  work  ;  and  no 
one  can  worship  truly  unless  he  girds 
up  the  loins  of  his  mind,  and  makes  ener- 
getic use  of  all  the  intellect  and  will-power 
which  the  Almighty  has  given  him.  The 
failure  of  intelligent  people  to  take  in 
spoken  discourse    is    something  disheart- 


Inspiring  the  Minister.  135 

ening.     He    is    an    exceptional    Christian 
who   is    able  to  follow  a  sermon  closely 
from  the  first  sentence  to  the  last.     Hence 
the    ignorance  of  many  church-members. 
Hence    the    misunderstandings    and  mis- 
interpretations.    Many    persons    mishear. 
Mishearing  is  chronic  with  them.     They 
invariably  drop  out  the  critical  qualifying 
phrase   of   a    sentence   and   the    cardinal 
paragraph    of    a    sermon.     They   do    this 
because  their  mind  takes  cat -naps.     Like 
a    worn-out     sewing-machine,     it     drops 
stitches.     What  minister  has  not  blushed 
on  hearing  some  of  his  best  listeners  en- 
deavor to  give  a  resume  of  his   sermon. 
Every  preacher  has  reason  to  be  devoutly 
thankful  to  God  that  he  is  not  responsi- 
ble for  everything  which  people  think  he 
has  said.     It  was  his  insight  into  human 
nature  which  led  Christ  to   end  his   dis- 
courses with,  "He  that  hath  ears  to  hear, 
let  him  hear." 

Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  laymen  are 
an  important  factor  in  the  preaching  of 


136    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

a  sermon.  The  sermon  is  determined  by 
the  preacher,  the  theme,  and  the  congre- 
gation. A  public  speaker,  some  one  has 
said,  gives  back  in  flood  what  he  receives 
from  his  audience  in  vapor.  But  suppose 
there  is  no  vapor  arising  from  the  people, 
and  that  the  audience  is  a  Sahara  desert, 
arid  and  dead.  How  can  a  man  speak 
with  glowing  tongue  unless  his  hearers 
help  him  }  Preachers  in  larger  numbers 
will  preach  with  genuine  Pentecostal  power 
when  their  people  supply  the  atmosphere 
in  which  great  speech  becomes  possible. 

Work,  then,  for  the  sermon  through 
the  week.  You  have  a  part  in  it  as  well 
as  your  pastor.  Subscribe  for  at  least 
one  religious  paper  that  you  may  keep 
in  touch  with  the  great  movements  in 
which  God  is  expressing  himself  in  your 
time.  Buy  the  best  books.  Read  church 
history.  Study  the  history  of  doctrine. 
Own  the  great  volumes  which  throw  light 
on  the  Scriptures.  A  few  men  and  women 
in   a   congregation,    informed   and   truth- 


Inspiring  the  Minister.  1 37 

hungry,  capable  of  appreciating  the  best 
thought  which  the  preacher  can  give,  are 
a  safeguard  against  ministerial  laziness, 
and  a  ceaseless  spur  to  more  strenuous 
labor.  Such  persons  call  out  his  reserves 
and  resources.  Are  you  an  inspiration  to 
your  pastor.^ 

Keep  your  Sundays  free  for  earnest 
reading.  Burn  up  the  Sunday  newspaper. 
It  is  an  indefensible,  intolerable  curse. 
It  exists  simply  and  solely  to  swell  the 
income  of  wealthy  and  greedy  newspaper 
proprietors.  A  Christian  ought  to  be 
ashamed  to  have  it  in  his  house.  Is  not 
a  man  sufficiently  secularized  by  six  days' 
contact  with  the  world  without  dipping 
his  mind  on  Sunday  morning  once  more 
into  the  muddy  stream  in  which  he  has 
dipped  it  on  the  preceding  six  days } 
What  can  be  expected  of  a  Christian  in 
public  worship  who  comes  to  church  with 
a  newspaper  stuffed  into  his  mind  1  He 
is  cold  as  a  clod  to  the  touch  of  the 
preacher,  and  lowers  the  spiritual  tempera- 


138    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

ture  of  the  entire  congregation.  William 
E.  Gladstone  was  an  ideal  worshipper  in 
God's  house.  He  concentrated  all  his 
great  powers  upon  the  sermon.  He  was 
interested  because  he  was  informed.  He 
was  informed  because  throughout  life  he 
had  made  diligent  use  of  his  Sundays. 
He  declared  in  old  age  that  he  would 
not  have  lived  so  long  had  he  not  always 
kept  his  Sundays  quite  apart  from  his 
political  life.  It  was  pure  refreshment  to 
him  to  turn  to  holier  things  on  that  day. 
It  enabled  him  to  learn  more  of  religious 
subjects  than  perhaps  any  other  layman  of 
our  century.  It  gave  him  that  firm  and 
splendid  ground  which  ennobled  and  hal- 
lowed all  his  actions.  "  Go  thou  and  do 
likewise." 


Appreciating  the  Minister.         139 


XX. 

appreciating  the  Minister. 

Ministers  are  human.  They  have 
hands,  organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affec- 
tions, passions.  If  you  prick  them  they 
bleed,  and  if  you  appreciate  them  they 
are  strengthened.  They  are  more  sensi- 
tive to  appreciation  than  most  men  be- 
cause of  the  nature  of  their  work.  Their 
work  is  heart  work.  It  is  arduous  and 
exhausting.  It  involves  their  sympathies 
and  affections.  To  have  a  thankless  con- 
gregation is  an  agony  something  like  that 
of  having  a  thankless  child. 

Moreover,  a  minister  has  many  things 
to  worry  him.  He  is  subject  to  constant 
and  merciless  criticism.  He  is  never 
eager  to  hear  all  the  things  that  people 
are  saying,  but  in  the  course  of  the  year 
he  is  certain  to  catch  enough  of  the  tittle- 


140    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

tattle  which  goes  on  around  him  to  trouble 
and  depress  him.  In  this  way  anxieties 
and  suspicions  often  arise  which  faith  is 
not  able  to  shake  off.  The  flippant  re- 
mark of  some  petulant  critic  may  lie  like 
lead  on  his  heart  for  weeks.  He  loses 
confidence  in  himself.  He  imagines  his 
critics  more  numerous  than  they  are. 
It  has  happened  more  than  once  that  a 
good  man  has  been  worried  into  insanity, 
or  the  grave,  by  the  impression  that  his 
parish  was  hostile  to  him.  The  impres- 
sion may  have  been  created  by  the  bad 
feeling  known  to  exist  in  only  two  or 
three  homes.  A  minister,  to  do  his  best 
work,  must  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  good 
will.  Laymen  ought  to  create  such  an 
atmosphere.  While  the  busybodies  are 
carrying  to  the  pastor  stories  of  dissatis- 
faction, the  saints  ought  to  bear  to  him 
messages  of  affectionate  good  cheer  and 
enthusiastic  approval. 

The  finest  results  of  a  minister's  labors 
are  below  the  reach    of   the  eye.     They 


Appreciating  the  Minister.         141 

cannot  be  computed  or  tabulated.  They 
are  spiritual  satisfactions,  heart  impul- 
sions, soul  inspirations,  which  only  those 
who  receive  them  know  anything  about. 
A  minister  often  fails  to  realize  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  work  he  is  doing.  Because 
the  people  say  nothing,  he  concludes  his 
ministry  is  in  vain.  Many  a  clergyman 
has  carried  a  burdened  heart  through 
years  of  disappointing  labor,  hungry  for 
a  word  of  appreciation  which  never  came, 
finally  throwing  down  his  work  in  de- 
spair, only  to  find  on  the  eve  of  his  de- 
parture to  another  parish  or  the  other 
world,  how  wide  was  the  satisfaction,  and 
how  genuine  the  affection  for  him  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  Just  a  word  of  com- 
mendation now  and  then  through  the 
silent  years  would  have  brightened  many  a 
day  that  was  dark,  and  made  lighter  many 
a  burden  which  almost  crushed.  Tell 
your  minister,  brethren,  that  you  appre- 
ciate what  he  is  doing.  Praise,  like 
mercy,  is  twice  blessed.     It  blesses  those 


142    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

who  give  as  well  as  those  who  receive.  It 
is  a  shameful  thing  to  sit  for  a  year  under 
preaching  which  makes  you  a  nobler  and 
happier  man  without  letting  your  pastor 
know  that  in  at  least  one  heart  the  seed 
has  fallen,  and  is  bringing  forth  many  fold. 

Laymen  ought  to  practise  Paul's  words  : 
"I  praise  you."  Why  not  praise  your 
pastor }  Are  you  afraid  of  spoihng  him  } 
Do  not  fear.  Praise  spoils  no  one  who  is 
not  spoiled  already.  It  is  true,  as  Words- 
worth says,  that  "  Praise  is  dangerous." 
But  so  also  is  every  other  good  thing. 
For  every  man  hurt  by  praise,  a  thousand 
are  starved  to  death  by  lack  of  it.  There 
is  nothing  which  humbles  a  true  man  like 
generous  appreciation. 

Many  persons  are  so  unaccustomed  to 
speak  complimentary  words  that  when 
they  attempt  it,  the  words  stick  in  their 
throat ;  or  if  the  words  get  out,  they  are 
badly  bungled.  No  man  under  thirty  can 
be  told  that  his  sermon  is  very  good  for  a 
young  man,  without  resenting  it.     He  has 


Appreciating  the  Minister.         143 

Paul's  authority  for  refusing  to  allow  men 
to  despise  his  youth.  It  is  galling  to  a 
man  over  sixty  to  receive  compliments 
with  a  reference  to  his  age  tucked  away 
in  one  end  of  them  —  a  sting,  as  it  were, 
in  their  tail.  Nor  is  it  edifying  to  hear  a 
person  begin  with,  "  I  don't  want  to  flatter 
you,  but  "  —  Such  a  remark  is  equivalent 
to  saying,  "  Please  don't  think  I'm  a  liar 
because  I  say  I  enjoyed  your  discourse." 
Nor  does  a  sensible  man  want  to  be  as- 
sured that  his  sermon  was  "  grand,"  or  that 
his  prayer  was  *' splendid."  Such  enco- 
miums are  almost  as  bad  as  the  eulogy 
of  the  brother  who  invariably  prefaces  his 
remarks  with  a  declaration  that  he  believes 
it  to  be  his  duty  to  encourage  a  man  when 
he  does  well.  Grown  men  do  not  like 
to  be  patted  patronizingly  on  the  head. 
Words  of  commendation,  when  squeezed 
through  the  lips  by  a  hard  sense  of  duty, 
bring  a  chill,  instead  of  a  glow,  to  the 
heart.  Praise  is  best  when  it  comes  easily 
and  naturally,  — 


144    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

"As  showers  from  the  clouds  of  summer. 
Or  tears  from  the  eyelids  start." 

A  quiet,  "  I  thank  you  for  your  prayer," 
or  "  Your  sermon  helped  me,"  is  worth 
more  than  all  the  stilted  English  which 
a  voluble  enthusiast  is  able  to  pour  into 
a  preacher's  ears. 

There  are  ministers  who  seldom  receive 
a  word  of  praise.  Their  big,  eloquent 
brothers  go  through  life  with  hozannas 
ringing  perpetually  in  their  ears,  while 
they  drudge  on  unnoticed,  with  no  one  to 
stir  their  pulses  by  shouting,  "  Well  done." 
It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  God's  com- 
mendation alone  is  sufficient.  Moses  was 
strong,  but  he  was  not  strong  enough  to 
hold  up  his  hands  to  the  end  of  the  day. 
"  Aaron  and  Hur  stayed  up  his  hands,  the 
one  on  the  one  side  and  the  other  on  the 
other  side,  and  his  hands  were  steady 
until  the  going  down  of  the  sun."  Happy 
the  minister  who  is  steadied  and  sustained 
by  Christians  who  appreciate  the  work 
that  is  being  done,  and  who  hearten  their 


Appreciating  the  Minister.         145 

leader  by  a  frequent  word  of  gratitude  and 
appreciation.  A  minister  was  one  day 
surprised  at  the  close  of  his  sermon  to 
have  a  stranger  greet  him  thus  :  "  I  thank 
you  for  that  sermon  ;  it  did  me  good." 
He  had  preached  faithfully  for  a  year, 
and  no  member  of  his  congregation  had 
in  all  that  time  expressed  to  him  a  word 
of  appreciation.  The  words  of  the  stran- 
ger overcame  him.  To  be  assured  that  a 
sermon  of  his  had  reached  the  heart  was 
like  rain  on  thirsty  soil.  He  hurried 
home  and  told  his  wife  the  good  news. 
They  bowed  their  heads  and  wept  to- 
gether. 


146   Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 


XXI. 

Criticising  the  Minister, 

It  is  a  difficult  task,  but  there  are  times 
when  it  must  be  done.  By  criticism  I 
do  not  mean  that  aimless  detraction  in 
which  undeveloped  church-members  occa- 
sionally indulge,  but  the  brave  and  open 
disapprobation  of  a  minister's  conduct,  or 
the  condemning  judgment  of  his  work. 
Ministers  are  not  infallible.  Like  other 
mortals,  they  fall  into  ruts.  They  some- 
times allow  idiosyncrasies  to  become  so 
pronounced  as  to  narrow  their  influence 
and  cripple  their  power.  Alas  for  a  man 
who  is  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  intel- 
ligent and  discriminating  criticism !  There 
is  scarcely  any  limit  to  the  number  of 
foolish  things  a  minister  may  be  guilty 
of.  He  may  come  to  church  meetings 
habitually  late,  or   he  may  sniffle  at  the 


Criticising  tJie  Minister.  147 

close  of  every  paragraph,  or  he  may 
whoop  Hke  a  wild  Indian  in  delivering 
tame  ideas,  or  he  may  practise  elocution- 
ary slides  in  his  prayers,  or  he  may  make 
faces  which  frighten  the  children,  or  he 
may  stare  at  the  wall  instead  of  looking 
at  the  people  while  preaching  his  ser- 
mons, or  he  may  make  the  church  a  place 
in  which  to  rehearse  the  chapters  of  his 
next  book,  or  he  may  refer  in  every  ser- 
mon to  his  trip  to  the  Holy  Land,  or  he 
may  make  Missions  or  some  other  equally 
good  theme  his  hobby,  and  ride  it  straight 
through  the  year,  or  he  may  allow  his 
voice  to  drop  into  inaudibility  at  the  close 
of  every  important  sentence,  or  he  may 
repeat  old  sermons  so  frequently  that 
even  people  with  a  poor  memory  find 
him  out,  or  he  may  go  gadding  over  the 
country  shining  at  all  sorts  of  celebrations 
while  his  people  sit  in  darkness  at  home, 
or  he  may  keep  on  for  years  mispronoun- 
cing a  half-dozen  common  words  to  the 
disgust   of  every  high-school   girl   in   the 


148    Qiciet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

congregation,  or—  What  does  your  min- 
ister do  ?  "  Oh,  if  he  would  only  quit 
that ! "  is  the  distressed  cry  of  many  a 
long-suffering  saint  who  wants  to  cure 
his  pastor  of  a  bad  habit,  and  does  not 
know  how  to  go  about  it. 

What  can  be  done  ?  The  providential 
remedy  is  a  wife,  but  the  remedy  is  not 
always  sufficient.  Some  men  do  not 
marry,  and  some  wives  do  not  know  how 
to  criticise.  Some  women  are  adepts  in 
criticism  ;  but  their  husbands,  being  stiff- 
necked  and  rebellious,  refuse  to  hearken 
to  their  strictures  and  admonitions.  It 
is  not  uncommon  for  both  the  minister 
and  his  wife  to  tumble  into  the  same 
ditch.  What  can  you  do }  Will  you 
write  him  an  anonymous  letter  1  Never ! 
It  is  the  work  of  a  coward  and  a  sneak. 
A  minister  who  values  his  time  will  not 
read  anonymous  letters.  Life  is  too  short 
to  waste  it  in  reading  communications 
whose  writers  are  ashamed  to  own  them. 
If   a  minister  is  foolish  enough  to  read 


Criticising  the  Minister,  1 49 

an  anonymous,  faultfinding  letter,  he  is 
almost  sure  to  think  it  the  production  of 
some  crank  or  knave,  and  consequently 
its  appeal  does  not  lead  him  to  repent- 
ance. Do  not  write  such  letters.  If  you 
know  something  you  are  convinced  that 
your  pastor  ought  to  know,  stand  up  and 
say  it  to  him  like  a  man.  "  I  withstood 
him  to  the  face,"  says  Paul,  in  describing 
the  way  in  which  he  rebuked  Peter.  Paul 
knew  how  to  censure  as  well  as  how  to 
praise. 

The  object  of  Christian  criticism  is  to 
edify.  To  edify  is  to  build  up.  A  man 
is  not  built  up  by  criticism  which  he 
never  hears.  Consequently  it  is  foolish 
to  criticise  a  minister  behind  his  back. 
Such  disparagement  may  offer  an  outlet 
for  one's  bad  humor,  but  it  does  not 
redound  to  the  glory  of  God. 

If  the  talk  is  carried  on  in  the  presence 
of  children,  it  becomes  a  tenfold  greater 
sin.  What  deeper  wound  can  a  parent 
inflict  upon  his  child  than  to  render  the 


150  Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

minister  of  religion  ridiculous  to  him  by 
laughing  at  his  mannerisms,  or  depreciat- 
ing his  intelligence  or  his  piety !  Chil- 
dren are  easily  prejudiced,  and  their  hearts 
can  be  readily  closed.  They  are  naturally 
trustful  and  receptive,  their  affections  are 
fresh,  and  their  confidence  in  adults  is  un- 
bounded. They  give  their  hearts  readily 
to  those  who  are  placed  over  them,  and 
it  is  in  their  docility  of  heart  that  there 
lies  the  possibility  of  education  and  cul- 
ture. To  criticise  in  their  presence  those 
whose  business  it  is  to  mould  them,  de- 
stroys in  them  the  very  capacity  which 
it  is  the  duty  of  parents  to  safeguard 
and  develop.  The  more  deeply  a  child 
loves  his  pastor  or  teacher,  the  more  ke 
will  learn  from  him.  How  can  a  boy  be 
helped  by  a  minister  whom  his  father 
picks  to  pieces  every  Sunday?  How  can 
the  life  of  a  girl  be  moulded  by  a  man 
whose  methods  and  attainments  are  con- 
stantly sneered  at  by  her  mother .?  Many 
parents  have  lamented  in  later  life  that 


Criticising  the  Minister.  i  5 1 

their  children  did  not  join  the  church,  not 
knowing  how  to  account  for  such  conduct, 
when  the  reason  was  that  the  children 
lost  confidence  in  the  church  on  account 
of  the  conversations  they  heard  at  the 
dinner-table.  No  matter  how  limited  in 
wisdom  or  goodness  the  minister  may  be, 
it  is  wicked  to  criticise  him  in  the  pres- 
ence of  boys  and  girls.  The  office  of  the 
minister  of  Christ  is  sacred,  and  the  child- 
heart  should  be  trained  to  reverence  the 
office  by  being  taught  to  honor  the  man 
who  fills  ■  it. 

Whenever,  therefore,  you  want  to  cen- 
sure your  pastor,  follow  the  directions  given 
by  the  Lord  in  the  eighteenth  chapter 
of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel.  The  minister 
is  your  brother,  and  if  he  has  trespassed 
against  you  by  actions  which  offend,  go 
and  tell  him  his  fault  between  you  and 
him  alone.  If  he  is  willing  to  hear  you, 
you  have  done  both  him  and  the  church 
an  invaluable  service.  But  if  he  will  not 
hear  you,  then  take  with  you  one  or  two 


152    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

more,  that  he  may  know  your  criticism  is 
not  a  personal  crotchet,  but  the  sober 
judgment  of  representative  members  of 
the  church.  If  he  shall  neglect  to  hear 
them,  tell  it  unto  the  church.  A  minister 
too  touchy  and  stubborn  to  listen  to  the 
counsel  of  his  best  people  is  a  fit  subject 
for  church  discipline.  If  he  insists  on 
acting  like  a  heathen,  he  ought  to  be 
treated  like  one.  Many  a  clergyman  has 
injured  his  influence  for  years  by  some 
oddity  of  behavior  or  crudity  of  character 
which  might  have  been  corrected  in  a  day 
had  a  few  sane  and  substantial  laymen 
been  brave  enough  to  call  his  attention 
to  the  thing  wherein  he  gave  offence. 


Seciirmg  a  Minister,  I  5  3 


XXII. 

Securing  a  Minister, 

There  is  only  one  thing  more  difficult, 
and  that  is  getting  rid  of  one.  In  say- 
ing this,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  you 
are  under  a  democratic  form  of  church 
government.  If  your  church  is  a  mon- 
archy, the  problem  is  a  simple  one.  In 
that  case  the  preacher  is  ordered  to  his 
post  by  his  superior  officer.  The  congre- 
gation has  nothing  to  say.  The  preacher 
is  sent.     The  church  accepts  him. 

But  Christians  in  increasing  numbers 
are  insisting  on  the  right  to  say  who 
shall  be  their  spiritual  leaders.  Even  in 
churches  whose  government  is  monarchi- 
cal, there  is  a  growing  disposition  among 
the  laity  to  transfer  the  appointment  of 
the  clergyman  from  the  hands  of  the 
hierarchy  into  the  hands  of  the  congrega- 


1 54    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

tion.  It  is  a  privilege  highly  prized,  but 
for  it  Christendom  is  paying  a  great  price. 
If  monarchy  has  its  dangers  and  tyran- 
nies, so  also  has  democracy  its  limitations 
and  madnesses.  When  the  local  church 
is  officered  by  external  authority,  there  is 
often  friction,  and  sometimes  open  rebel- 
lion. When  the  local  church  is  left  to 
select  its  own  leader,  there  is  often  a 
storm  at  his  coming,  and  a  battle  over 
his  departure. 

One  of  the  first  steps  to  be  taken  in  the 
needed  reform  is  to  abolish  the  ancient 
and  pernicious  custom  of  candidating.  It 
is  a  device  of  Satan  for  humiliating  min- 
isters and  dividing  churches.  The  sys- 
tem is  plausible,  and  ingenious  arguments 
can  be  made  for  it.  But  "there  is  a 
way  which  seemeth  right  unto  a  man, 
but  the  end  thereof  are  the  ways  of 
death."  A  minister  preaches  as  a  can- 
didate. His  voice  and  gestures,  his  neck- 
tie and  theology,  his  coat  and  rhetoric,  — 
all  come  under  severe  scrutiny.     At  the 


Securing  a  Minister.  155 

close  of  the  sermon  a  canvass  is  made  to 
ascertain  what  the  popular  estimate  of  the 
man  is.  There  are  usually  a  few  who 
have  heard  of  another  son  of  thunder 
who  looms  up  as  a  possible  prize,  and 
this  man  must  of  course  be  heard  be- 
fore the  vote  is  taken.  He  preaches,  and 
the  church  is  immediately  divided.  A 
congregation  of  intelligent  people  cannot 
be  expected  to  agree  in  their  tastes. 
Preachers  differ  from  one  another  as 
widely  as  fruits  do.  Some  people  like 
apples  best,  others  prefer  peaches,  others 
plums,  others  pears,  and  others  grapes. 
There  is  no  use  arguing  about  tastes. 
As  with  fruits,  so  with  men.  One  man 
prefers  Shakespeare,  another  Milton,  an- 
other Burns.  There  is  no  use  trying  to 
persuade  them  to  agree.  Whenever  two 
preachers  of  equal  ability  are  placed  in 
competition  before  a  congregation,  a  di- 
vision is  inevitable.  The  amazing  thing 
is  that  so  many  laymen  do  not  see  this. 
After  the  church  has  been  split  into  two 


156   Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

factions,  it  is  customary  to  hear  a  third 
candidate,  which  usually  results  in  the 
creation  of  a  third  faction.  This  leads  to 
a  fourth  candidate  and  an  additional  fac- 
tion. Multitudes  of  churches  have  taken 
this  broad  road  which  leads  to  destruc- 
tion, and  other  multitudes  are  rushing  on 
to  wreck  themselves  by  indulging  in  the 
same  inexcusable  folly. 

If  a  candidate  is  heard  at  all,  every 
wise  man  in  the  church  should  strenu- 
ously insist  on  a  vote  being  taken  before 
another  man  is  allowed  to  go  into  the 
pulpit.  The  candidate  himself  should  de- 
mand this.  If  a  church  is  unwilling  to 
grant  his  request,  then  he  should  pass 
by  on  the  other  side.  Such  a  church 
is  too  wilful  and  foolish  to  deserve  a 
sensible  man  for  its  leader. 

The  best  advice  to  a  church  is.  Candi- 
date not  at  all.  It  is  a  useless  piece  of 
business  at  the  best.  What  can  you  tell 
from  one  sermon }  A  shallow  man,  con- 
fident and  magnetic,   may  please   you  at 


Securing  a  Minister.  157 

first  hearing,  while  a  worthy  man,  from 
humility  or  physical  trepidation,  may  dis- 
appoint you.  You  must  hear  a  man 
preach  for  a  year  before  you  have  a 
right  to  judge  him.  Good  preachers  are 
better  in  their  twentieth  sermon  than  in 
their  first.  Candidating  does  not  tell  you 
enough.  A  minister  is  more  than  a 
preacher.  He  does  various  kinds  of  work. 
Fidelity  in  these  other  labors  is  as  im- 
portant as  ability  in  pulpit  ministration. 
Manhood  is  the  supreme  qualification. 
You  cannot  judge  of  manhood  in  one 
sermon. 

Candidating  is  a  disgrace  to  the  house 
of  God.  Who  thinks  of  God  when  a 
candidate  is  preaching  t  Not  the  preacher, 
because  he  is  thinking  of  the  people ;  not 
the  people,  because  they  are  dissecting 
the  preacher.  Nothing  is  so  demoralizing 
to  a  Christian  church  as  candidating.  It 
converts  public  worship  into  a  farce. 

Moreover,  it  is  humiliating  to  the 
preacher.    To  be  inspected  like  a  pumpkin 


158     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

at  a  fair,  to  be  put  through  the  paces 
Hke  a  horse  at  a  race,  to  be  judged  by  a 
miscellaneous  assembly  many  of  whom  do 
not  know  what  a  good  sermon  is,  is  an 
outrage  upon  clergymen  which  ought  to 
be  abolished  forthwith. 

But  how  shall  a  church  know  whom  to 
choose  ?  Let  it  choose  a  man  on  his 
record.  A  clergyman  is  an  epistle  known 
and  read  of  all  men.  He  does  not  do  his 
work  in  a  corner.  Fidelity  in  one  field 
is  a  better  recommendation  than  a  dozen 
sermons  preached  on  exhibition.  If  cer- 
tain brethren  feel  unable  to  vote  for  a  man 
whom  they  have  not  seen  and  handled,  let 
them  hear  that  man  in  his  own  church. 
It  is  their  duty  to  travel  to  him,  and  not 
his  duty  to  come  to  them.  But  suppose 
the  preacher  is  just  out  of  school.-*  Let 
him  be  called  on  his  record  as  a  student 
and  a  man.  We  shall  have  a  new  conse- 
cration among  ministers  when  it  is  once 
fully  understood  that  a  man  is  called  on 
his  record.     But  a  church  might  be  dis- 


Securing  a  Minister.  1 59 

appointed !  Of  course  it  might.  The 
chances  for  disappointment,  however,  are 
not  so  many  as  under  the  present  system. 
Many  a  man  who  goes  up  like  a  rocket  in 
his  first  sermon,  comes  down  like  a  stick 
in  his  tenth.  Hundreds  of  churches  suf- 
fer to-day  under  the  ministry  of  men  who 
were  chosen  on  the  impulse  of  first  im- 
pressions, rather  than  on  the  record  of 
faithful  and  successful  work. 

This  is  no  new  theory.  It  has  been 
acted  on  again  and  again.  Many  leading 
pulpits  are  now  filled  by  men  who  were 
called  to  their  places  without  preaching  as 
candidates.  As  a  rule,  it  is  the  little 
churches  which  are  most  fussy  and  fastid- 
ious, and  are  capable  of  greatest  tyranny 
and  folly.  Every  church  which  by  its 
action  registers  its  disapproval  of  the 
custom  of  candidating,  does  an  invaluable 
service,  not  only  to  the  clergy,  but  to  the 
entire  Christian  world. 


i6o    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 


XXIII. 

Dismissing  a  Minister. 

If  all  ministers  had  the  ability  to  sense 
a  situation,  there  would  be  less  tribula- 
tion among  the  saints.  But  alas  !  some 
of  the  best  of  men  are  the  stupidest  in 
discerning  the  signs  of  the  times.  Some 
times  it  is  not  blindness,  but  a  wrong 
philosophy  which  causes  the  trouble.  The 
minister  sees  that  he  is  not  the  man  for 
the  place,  but  he  hangs  on  under  the 
impression  that  hanging  on  is  one  of  the 
rights  delivered  once  for  all  to  the  apos- 
tles and  their  successors.  Some  clergy- 
men start  out  wrong,  and  they  stay  wrong 
to  the  end.  They  place  themselves  first, 
and  the  church  second.  Any  minister 
who  does  that  is  fated  to  cause  mischief. 
If  a  man  in  the  ministry  is  unwilling  to 
sacrifice    himself    for    the    good    of    the 


Dismissing  a  Minister.  i6i 

church,  he  is  a  dangerous  man.  Beware 
of  him !  There  are  men  who  all  the  way 
through  argue  every  church  question  from 
the  ministerial  standpoint.  *'  I  ought  to 
receive  so  much  salary  —  therefore!"  — 
It  is  just  such  an  argument  which  ac- 
counts for  hundreds  of  ministerial  loaf- 
ers. They  never  get  a  pulpit,  because  the 
salary  never  reaches  their  standard.  "I 
have  a  majority  of  the  people  with  me 
—  therefore!" —  A  man  who  so  argues 
has  a  devil  in  him,  and  is  sure  to  split 
a  church.  "I  have  my  children  to  edu- 
cate—  therefore ! "  —  As  though  the  chief 
end  of  a  clergyman  is  to  send  his  chil- 
dren through  college.  "  I  have  preached 
here  many  years  —  therefore  !  "  —  That 
is  a  pillow  on  which  many  a  worn-out 
herald  of  the  cross  is  sleeping.  When 
ministers  are  the  slaves  of  false  logic, 
the  only  relief  is  to  be  found  in  the 
laity.  It  is  the  duty  of  laymen  to  safe- 
guard the  interests  of  the  church,  and 
they  must   do  this,  though  the  doing  of 


1 62   Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

it  costs  them  sacrifice  and  causes  good 
men  pain.  The  long-suffering  patience  of 
church-members  under  pastors  who  are 
intellectually  or  temperamentally  or  phys- 
ically unfit  for  their  position,  is  indescrib- 
ably pathetic.  To  be  sure  there  are  here 
and  there  crotchety  and  fickle  churches 
which  have  no  mercy  on  ministers  ;  but 
for  every  such  church  there  are  a  score 
of  churches  which  are  willing  to  bear  to 
the  uttermost  with  a  minister  whose  min- 
istry is  a  long-drawn  affliction. 

The  forbearance,  however,  is  often  the 
product  of  necessity  rather  than  of  grace. 
In  sheer  helplessness  the  people  submit 
to  a  scourge  which  they  know  not  how 
to  escape.  What  is  more  pitiable  than 
the  predicament  of  a  church  with  a  min- 
ister who  ought  to  resign  and  who  does 
not  have  the  grace  to  do  it  t  The  usual 
method  is  to  allow  things  to  drag  on 
until  both  sides  are  worn  out.  An  im- 
mense amount  of  growling  is  done  behind 
the  minister's  back,  but  of  square,  manly 


Dismissing  a  Minister.  1 63 

action  there  is  little.  Sometimes  a  slight 
cut  in  the  salary  is  given  as  a  hint. 
Sometimes  the  hint  takes  the  form  of 
irregular  church  attendance.  But  all  such 
methods  of  beating  around  the  bush  are 
unbecoming  to  Christian  men. 

Laymen  should  not  hesitate  to  exercise 
their  rights.  If  a  minister  is  not  intel- 
lectually strong  enough  to  lead  a  parish 
he  ought  to  resign.  If  he  does  not  re- 
sign of  his  own  accord,  he  should  be 
requested  to  do  it.  What  right  has  a 
minister  unequal  to  his  task  to  wreck  a 
church  simply  because  the  church,  in  ig- 
norance of  his  ability,  once  gave  him  a 
call.'*  Or  if  he  has  crossed  the  dead  line, 
he  should  be  promptly  retired.  Some 
men  cross  it  early.  Some  men  never 
cross  it.  Age  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
A  man  crosses  it  whenever  he  ceases  to 
study.  No  man  who  is  not  a  student 
should  be  allowed  to  remain  in  a  Chris- 
tian pulpit.  It  is  a  burning  disgrace  that 
so    many   laymen  are  indifferent    at    this 


164    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

point.  They  allow  their  pastor  to  dawdle 
away  his  time  without  protest.  It  is  the 
duty  of  a  layman  to  be  up  and  after  a 
minister  who  commits  the  unpardonable 
sin  of  starving  his  church.  Any  minister 
who,  ordained  to  preach  the  gospel,  goes 
into  the  pulpit  Sunday  after  Sunday  to 
rehash  a  few  stale  exhortations  or  retail 
a  half-dozen  insipid  anecdotes,  ought  to 
be  driven  out  of  the  pulpit  by  laymen 
burning  with  the  same  fiery  indignation 
which  led  the  Son  of  God  to  hurl  thunder- 
bolts at  the  men  who  sat  in  Moses'  seat. 

It  is  not  true,  as  is  sometimes  taken 
for  granted,  that  a  minister  has  a  right 
to  hold  his  pulpit  until  he  dies.  His 
term  of  office  is  measured  by  the  dura- 
tion of  his  ability  to  perform  efficiently 
the  duties  of  his  ministry.  The  progress 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  has  been  lamen- 
tably delayed  by  the  obstinacy  of  clergy- 
men who  have  held  on  to  their  places 
long  years  after  their  usefulness  had 
ceased.     What  sadder  spectacle  can  there 


Dismissing  a  Minister.  165 

be  than  a  church  gradually  disintegrat- 
ing, its  congregations  dwindling,  its  Sun- 
day-school shrivelling,  its  young  people 
scattering,  its  finances  shrinking,  its  in- 
fluence dying,  and  all  because  the  good 
man  in  the  pulpit  cannot  see  that  the 
hour  for  his  departure  is  at  hand.  The 
hoary  head  is  a  crown  of  glory  if  it  be 
found  in  the  way  of  righteousness,  but 
when  the  gray-headed  man  is  so  un- 
righteous as  to  be  willing  to  kill  a  church 
rather  than  have  an  assistant  or  get  out 
of  the  way,  he  ought  to  receive  the  re- 
buke which  his  selfishness  deserves.  The 
fact  that  in  his  prime  he  did  valiant  ser- 
vice is  not  sufficient  reason  for  his  re- 
tention. Why  rob  one  generation  by 
foisting  upon  it  a  man  who  wore  him- 
self out  serving  the  generation  preced- 
ing }  Nor  ought  his  limited  bank  account 
to  be  a  controlling  factor  in  determining 
the  policy  of  the  church.  What  an  out- 
rage, to  stunt  and  starve  the  spiritual 
life  of  a  community  because  the  minister 


1 66    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

needs  a  living  !  Every  church  should  pay 
its  minister  so  generously  that  ample  pro- 
vision can  be  made  for  old  age.  A  few- 
hundred  dollars  added  each  year  to  his 
salary  to  pay  for  an  endowment  life  in- 
surance policy  would  take  away  the  neces- 
sity of  keeping  him  in  the  pulpit  after 
his  pulpit  power  has  vanished.  Courage 
and  frankness  then  are  of  sovereign  im- 
portance. Church  officials  should  express 
to  their  pastor  their  deepest  convictions. 
Many  a  minister  has  been  allowed  by  his 
most  intimate  friends  to  go  on.  in  utter 
ignorance  of  the  rising  feeling  against 
him,  suffering  at  last  needless  and  un- 
speakably bitter  humiliations,  simply  be- 
cause his  brothers  in  Christ  were  too 
timid  and  tender-hearted  to  do  their 
duty. 


The  Minister  s  Wife,  167 


XXIV. 

The  Minister's  Wife, 

I  KNEW  you  would  want  to  talk  about 
her  —  people  always  do.  I  do  not  blame 
you.  I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  a  word 
about  her  myself.  Since  a  man  and  his 
wife  are  one,  no  revelation  of  a  minis- 
ter would  be  complete  which  ignored  or 
slighted  the  mistress  of  the  manse. 

Yes,  she  has  a  hard  time,  but  not  so 
hard  as  some  of  you  imagine.  Her  trib- 
ulations have  been  greatly  overestimated. 
When  she  has  a  harder  time  than  other 
women,  it  is  frequently  her  own  fault.  A 
parson's  wife  has  unique  opportunities  for 
blundering.  When  such  opportunities  are 
numberless,  it  is  a  rare  woman  who  is  able 
to  turn  her  back  upon  them  all.  Many  a 
minister's  wife  makes  herself  wretched  by 
attempting  the  impossible.     It  is  impossi- 


1 68    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

ble,  for  instance,  to  please  everybody ;  and 
woe  to  the  mortal  foolish  enough  to  at- 
tempt it.  The  chief  end  of  woman  is  not 
to  please  people,  but  to  do  her  duty.  A 
failure  to  learn  this  has  wrecked  the  hap- 
piness of  many  hearts.  Or  she  may  at- 
tempt to  keep  pace  with  her  husband  in 
pastoral  calling.  A  woman  who  takes 
upon  herself  the  pastoral  work  of  a  large 
parish  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  her- 
self, sooner  or  later,  in  a  nervine  hospital. 
God  punishes  women  who  break  his  law 
in  a  foolish  ambition  to  satisfy  public  ex- 
pectations. Or  she  may  try  to  walk  in 
the  footsteps  of  her  predecessor.  This 
is  a  gratuitous  method  of  self-immolation. 
No  two  women  have  the  same  nature,  and 
it  is  foolish  to  wear  one's  self  out  in  try- 
ing to  do  things  simply  because  somebody 
else  did  them.  Or  she  may  allow  the 
good  women  of  the  parish  to  place  her 
on  the  twelve  thrones  of  Israel  —  a  pro- 
ceeding which  invariably  invites  disaster. 
Uneasy  lies  the   head  that  wears  twelve 


The  Minister  ^s  Wife.  1 69 

crowns !  It  is  much  better,  as  a  rule,  for 
a  minister's  wife  to  let  other  women  sit 
on  the  thrones,  while  she  takes  her  place 
among  the  loyal  workers  who  engage  in 
obscure  and  unofficial  labors.  Because  a 
woman  is  married  to  a  minister,  it  does 
not  follow  that  she  must  be  the  president 
of  every  organization  in  the  parish,  or  pre- 
side at  every  public  meeting  which  women 
may  hold.  No  minister's  wife  should  bear 
any  more  parish  burdens  than  her  own 
good  sense  tells  her  she  ought  to  carry. 
To  carry  them  simply  because  some  good 
and  officious  sister  thinks  she  ought  to 
do  it  is  consummate  foolishness. 

Much  depends  upon  the  way  a  minis- 
ter's wife  uses  her  tongue.  It  is  not  ne- 
cessary for  her  to  talk  about  her  ideas 
of  what  a  church  has  a  right  to  expect 
of  her.  People  will  find  out  her  ideas 
from  her  conduct.  Ministers  frequently 
start  antagonisms  on  entering  a  parish  by 
blowing  a  trumpet  at  the  gate  announ- 
cing to  the  faithful  what  they  propose  to 


1 70    Qidct  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

do.  If  they  would  quietly  do  what  they 
propose  to  do,  and  say  nothing  about  it, 
there  would  be  less  friction  and  more 
progress.  A  minister's  wife  who  blows 
a  trumpet  on  entering  the  town,  publish- 
ing what  she  will  do  and  what  she  will 
not  do,  inevitably  stirs  up  oppositions 
which  she  will  never  be  able  to  overcome. 
If  she  intends  to  perform  marvellous  feats, 
her  intention  should  be  kept  a  profound 
secret ;  if  she  proposes  to  shake  off  most 
of  the  burdens  which  the  wives  of  clergy- 
men usually  carry,  she  should  be  exceed- 
ingly meek  and  say  nothing.  The  people 
of  a  parish  will  allow  a  minister's  wife  to 
do  practically  what  she  pleases,  if  she  does 
not  challenge  their  criticism  by  shouting 
from  the  housetop  what  she  considers  her 
privileges  and  rights.  It  is  remarkable 
how  sensible  most  Christians  are  if  they 
are  not  provoked  to  act  the  fool.  Just  a 
spark  of  folly  in  the  pastor  or  his  wife  will 
often  kindle  a  conflagration  of  foolishness 
which  no  one  can  extinguish.     Whenever 


The  Minister' s  Wife.  171 

you  hear  a  clergyman  or  his  wife  laying 
down  in  public  the  limits  of  their  obliga- 
tions and  the  extent  of  their  duties,  look 
out  for  a  squall.  If  a  minister  and  his 
wife  offend  not  in  tongue,  the  same  are 
a  perfect  couple. 

But  the  minister's  wife  is  not  always  to 
blame.  There  are  women  in  every  parish 
who  are  adepts  in  the  art  of  making  the 
wife  of  the  minister  uncomfortable.  They 
can  call  on  her  at  all  hours  of  the  day, 
upsetting  her  plans  and  interrupting  her 
work.  They  can  everlastingly  urge  her 
to  call  on  them.  If  she  accepted  every 
invitation  to  call,  there  would  be  no  time 
left  for  anything  else.  They  can  repeat 
to  her  all  the  dismal  stories  afloat  in  the 
parish.  They  can  insist  upon  her  tak- 
ing the  leadership  in  every  good  cause, 
whether  God  created  her  for  leadership 
or  not.  They  can  give  her  advice  with- 
out being  asked  for  it.  They  can  say 
uncharitable  things,  and  make  damaging 
comparisons,  and  —  it  would  take  a  woman 


I  ^2    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

to  enumerate  all  the  things  which  women 
can  do. 

Let  her  alone.  If  she  has  children,  and 
wants  to  stay  at  home  with  them,  let  her 
do  it.  It  is  her  right  to  do  it.  If  she 
prefers  to  give  her  time  to  her  husband, 
helping  him  in  his  correspondence,  and 
bearing  the  burden  of  household  cares, 
let  her  do  it.  There  are  other  kinds  of 
Christian  work  besides  work  done  at  sew- 
ing-bees and  missionary  meetings.  It  is 
work  enough  for  any  woman,  just  taking 
care  of  a  minister.  If  she  is  timid  and 
retiring,  let  her  alone.  What  right  have 
you  to  haul  her  out  in  public  places  when 
every  fibre  of  her  being  revolts  against  it  ? 
If  she  wants  to  dress  plainly  or  superbly, 
let  her  alone.  If  her  husband  is  satisfied, 
you  ought  to  be.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
she  insists  on  running  everything,  —  from 
her  own  kitchen  up  to  the  missionary  con- 
vention,—  forgive  her.  Some  women  are 
made  that  way ;  they  cannot  help  it.  If 
she  has  an  unbridled  tongue,  and  persists 


The  Minister's  Wife,  173 

in  saying  things  which  ought  to  be  left 
unsaid,  do  not  repeat  them.  A  woman 
who  rehearses  through  the  parish  the  fool- 
ish remarks  of  injudicious  women  is  more 
blameworthy  than  the  women  who  first 
spoke  them.  If  she  has  poor  taste  in 
dress,  and  slight  tact  in  conversation,  and 
scant  ability  in  housekeeping,  you  cannot 
cure  her  by  talking.  Minister's  wives  are 
very  much  like  their  husbands,  —  they  are 
not  perfect.  They  could,  no  doubt,  have 
been  created  perfect,  but  God  made  them 
to  match  the  men.  It  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected a  woman  should  be  your  ideal  min- 
ister's wife.  It  is  sufficient  that  she  be 
the  ideal  of  her  husband. 


1/4    Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 


XXV. 

The  Mission  of  Laymen, 

The  New  Testament  likes  laymen.  It 
knows  nothing  of  that  unique  dignity  and 
supernatural  authority  of  the  clergy  which 
have  been  the  curse  of  the  Christian 
world.  The  church  on  the  day  of  Pen- 
tecost was  a  democracy.  From  the  days 
of  Moses  onward  the  deepest  wish  of 
Israel  had  been,  "  Would  God  that  all  the 
Lord's  people  were  prophets,  that  the 
Lord  would  put  his  spirit  upon  them." 
Prophecy  at  its  highest  had  dared  to  say 
that  such  a  time  was  coming.  Peter  in 
his  opening  sermon  declared  that  the 
dreams  and  prophecies  of  the  ages  were 
at  last  fulfilled.  God  had  indeed  poured 
out  his  spirit  upon  all  flesh,  —  upon  women 
as  well  as  men,  upon  the  young  as  well  as 
upon  the   old.     All  were   prophets.     All 


The  Mission  of  Laymen,         175 

spoke  for  God.  Upon  each  head  there 
sat  a  tongue  of  fire.  They  were  all  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  greatest  word 
in  the  Book  of  the  Acts  is  ''All."  All  were 
baptized  ;  all  spoke ;  all  prayed ;  all  spread 
abroad  the  good  tidings  ;  all  participated  in 
public  worship ;  all  exercised  authority  in 
church  government ;  all  were  thrilled  by 
the  rapture  of  a  great  love,  ennobled 
by  the  weight  of  a  great  responsibility, 
and  zealous  in  the  performance  of  a  great 
task.  The  apostolic  church  was  mighty 
because  it  was  a  brotherhood,  and  all 
believers  had  all  things  common. 

But  into  this  new  Garden  of  Eden  a 
serpent  crawled,  —  ecclesiastical  ambition. 
By  slow  advances  the  clergy  encroached 
upon  the  rights  of  the  laity,  crowding  lay- 
men from  the  position  given  them  by  the 
Lord.  The  Church  of  God  ceased  to  be 
a  brotherhood.  It  became  a  monarchy, 
with  rulers  and  subjects.  All  authority 
passed  little  by  little  into  the  hands  of  the 
clergy.     With  the  growth  of  the  hierarchy 


1/6     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

the  power  and  the  glory  of  the  church 
of  the  apostles  vanished.  The  dark  ages 
were  the  ages  in  which  the  hierarchy  was 
supreme. 

The  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century 
was  a  triumph  of  laymen.  Martin  Luther 
could  have  done  nothing  had  it  not  been 
for  the  laity  of  Germany.  In  England 
the  head  of  the  Reformation  was  a  layman. 
It  was  largely  by  the  energy  of  laymen 
that  the  English  Church  was  reconstructed ; 
and  it  was  by  the  laymen  of  Cromwell's 
army  that  the  Stuart  despotism  was 
crushed,  and  the  history  of  political  liberty 
was  opened.  The  great  event  of  the  six- 
teenth century  was  the  rise  of  the  laity 
in  the  Christian  church.  Modern  history 
began  when  the  laity  resumed  their  right- 
ful place  in  public  worship.  For  a  thou- 
sand years  they  had  simply  assisted  at 
rites  wrought  for  them  by  priestly  hands. 
A  new  day  dawned  when  "  the  people 
were  called  into  the  chancel,"  and  public 
worship  became  a  common  prayer  of  the 


The  Mission  of  Laymen.  177 

whole  body  of  worshippers.  The  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  is  the  monument  of  an 
immortal  triumph.  As  soon  as  the  Mass, 
which  is  a  sacrifice  wrought  through 
priestly  intervention,  was  superseded  by 
the  "communion  service,"  laymen  once 
more  enjoyed  the  privilege  which  belonged 
to  them  in  apostolic  days,  and  tasted  anew 
the  blessedness  of  Christian  fellowship. 
The  stream  of  centuries  was  turned  out 
of  its  channel  by  allowing  laymen  their 
New-Testament  rights  as  worshippers. 

But  the  world  awaits  a  new  reformation. 
The  church  to-day  is  not  yet  apostolic. 
It  limps  and  halts.  In  the  midst  of  vast 
opportunities  it  stands  impotent  and  be- 
wildered. Hundreds  of  ministers  are  sick 
at  heart.  Many  of  them  have  grown  pes- 
simistic. Occasionally  one  of  them  drifts 
into  infidelity.  The  majority  of  them  are 
discouraged.  It  would  be  a  revelation  to 
the  world  should  clergymen  speak  out 
plainly  what  they  know  and  suffer. 

We   shall   never  get   out   of   the  ditch 


1/8     Qtiiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People, 

until  laymen  realize  that  they  also  are  suc- 
cessors of  the  apostles.  They  stand  in 
the  line  of  a  great  succession.  They  are 
called  to  be  kings  and  priests  unto  God. 
The  trouble  now  is  that  laymen  in  large 
numbers  are  not  in  the  church.  Their 
names  are  in  the  church  book,  but  they 
themselves  are  not  in  the  church.  Some 
of  them  are  in  their  business,  and  others 
in  their  lodge,  but  too  few  of  them  are  in 
the  church.  No  man  is  in  the  church 
whose  heart  and  mind  are  not  in  it.  The 
church  is  hungering  for  the  thought  and 
affection  of  her  men.  There  is  enough 
brain-power  in  every  church  to  solve  all 
its  problems  if  this  brain-power  were  uti- 
lized. The  problems  will  never  be  settled 
so  long  as  men  think  that  paying  their 
pew-rent  satisfies  all  the  legitimate  claims 
which  organized  Christianity  makes  upon 
them.  The  great  need  of  the  church  is 
not  money,  but  life.  With  new  volumes 
of  mental  and  spiritual  energy,  money 
would  flow  in  like  a  mighty  stream.     Lay- 


The  Mission  of  Laymen.  1 79 

men  have  won  their  rights  as  worshippers, 
they  have  not  yet  accepted  their  privileges 
as  workers.  This  is  the  next  step  in  the 
world's  redemption. 

According  to  the  New  Testament  every 
Christian  is  a  herald,  a  pastor,  a  mission- 
ary. Every  follower  of  Christ  is  ordered 
into  the  vineyard.  Unless  he  takes  up 
his  cross  daily,  he  does  not  belong  to 
Christ.  But  this  is  a  page  of  the  New 
Testament  little  heeded.  "  The  fields  are 
white  unto  the  harvest,  but  the  laborers 
are  few."  The  minister  goes  into  the 
field,  and  the  majority  of  his  people  go 
somewhere  else.  This,  in  a  sentence,  is 
the  running  sore  of  Christendom.  Why 
are  churches  half  empty }  Laymen  do 
not  work  to  fill  them.  Why  are  deficits 
so  universal }  Laymen  do  not  plan  to 
abolish  them.  Why  does  the  church  make 
so  few  converts  ?  Laymen  do  not  talk  on 
the  subject  of  religion.  Why  does  church 
life  flow  in  such  feeble  streams  1  Laymen 
do  not  pour  their  life  into  it. 


i8o     Quiet  Talks  With  Earnest  People. 

The  baptism  for  which  the  church  is 
waiting  is  the  baptism  of  larger  knowledge. 
We  do  not  seem  to  know  the  things  which 
belong  unto  peace.  They  are  hid  from 
our  eyes.  We  do  not  comprehend  what 
this  means  :  *'  One  is  your  Master,  and  all 
ye  are  brethren."  We  stumble  over  this  : 
"As  my  Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so 
send  I  you."  We  forget  to  whom  this  is 
spoken :  "  Go  and  make  disciples  of  all 
the  nations."  We  cannot  say  with  Paul : 
"  I  rejoice  in  my  sufferings,  and  fill  up  on 
my  part  that  which  is  lacking  of  the  afflic- 
tions of  Christ,"  because  we  do  not  realize 
that  we,  laymen  as  well  as  clergymen,  are 
called  to  be  "laborers  together  with  God." 
And  yet,  "  It  is  a  faithful  saying :  For  if 
we  be  dead  with  him,  we  shall  also  live 
with  him.  If  we  suffer,  we  shall  also  reign 
with  him." 


